Kills the Flame
by The Perfectly Imperfect One
Summary: Syrr is a paranoid apocalipse obsesee, but she doesn't know how much all her studies will come in handy. When all the lights go out, for good, what will she do? Complete summary inside.
1. Intro Chapter 1

**Heyy so this is my way of actually getting over my apocalipse obsession. See, Dies The Fire,(first in The Change series), the book that this fanfic is based on, is about the apocalipse, kind of. And this is my way of getting my 'plans' for it somewhere. This is my version of what I'd think/ dream would happen, with alot of exitification (no, that is not in fact a word). Anyways, here's the summary:**

Syrr (pronounced Sire) normally was worried about her next horse exam, or what boy she wanted to get asked out by. But, when the lights go out, and don't come back on, she decides to take action. Now, here's a big question. What would you do if you were left without electricity, or any way of getting transportation, other then biking, walking and riding? Because, Syrr does a damn good job.

**So, there's the summary. Here's the Prologue:**

"...and I need to be ready in case the zombies come, or the vampires, or the other supernatural creatures set on murdering me and raping my sisters and family!" I exclaimed.

Tynk rolled her grey eyes at me and shook her blonde hair. "Come on Syrr, you don't think that's actually going to happen!"

"Of course she does Tynk," Ry replied, swishing her dark brown hair, "she wouldn't be talking about it if she didn't."

Elli giggled and threw her blonde head back, making the curls go everywhere. Letta just rolled her pale green eyes and smiled.

"Ya, well, you know what? My Mary Poppins bag will save us one day! We'll be stuck somewhere, and I'd have this wierd feeling that I need to bring it, and then we'll need it. You just watch." I dropped my book into my locker. I grabbed my gold-brown hair and tied it up in a messy bun. I filled my bag with the usual, reading glasses, pencil case, book. I was about to close my locker when I felt as if I needed to take my Mary Poppins bag. (My bag had two pairs of sweats, five gym shirts, five shorts, two pairs of socks, one pair of thermal socks, on underarmour shirt, one sweater, one pair of shoes.) I grabbed it and closed the locker.

"No! She's got _the feeling_!" Ry gasped in mock horror, covering her mouth and making her gray eyes goes wide.

I hit her with the bag. "When _the feeling_ saves your ass Malory Groves, you'll be on your knees begging for forgiveness."

"I'll do just that if that happens." she shook her head at Tynk and they shared a knowing smile. Elli and Letta were in their usual spot, still standing at Letta's locker while she slowly filled her bag.

The three of us walked down the halls and my feeling of dread grew and grew. Before we split up to get to our busses I stopped them. I looked into both of their eyes. "Something bad's going to happen. Please promise me that you'll go to the barn, just like we planned." I pleaded.

They nodded, and shook it off, but I could sense their unease. They were getting pretty scared from my actions. I'd never been this intense. Normally it was just my obsessions getting the better of me.

I walked home from the bus stop, trying to get there as fast as I could. When I got there I made sure that I knew where all the essentials were, but decided not to do anything with them yet, I didn't want to look stupid. I stopped in the bathroom later, just staring into the mirror. Hazel eyes greeted me, and they questionned me. I felt like crying, because the bad feelings were just horrible.

"What's happening to you Syrr?" I asked myself. "What's going on?" I touched my reflection lightly and then dropped my hand. I flicked off the light switch. That was the last time I'd ever see electrical lights working ever agian, but I didn't know that.

I sat down and flicked on the T.V. deciding to wait until 5 ish to make dinner for Lu and Lyn. I was watching M.A.S.H. a comedy about the 4077 medical army hospital. The phone rang loudly and I groaned pushing up from the chair.

" 'Lo?" I muttered, suppressing a yawn.

"Syrr?" It was Tynk and her voice was thick with worry and fright.

That snapped me to attention right away, and my hands started sweating. "What's wrong Tynk?"

"I don't.. I don't know.. I just.. feel like something really bad is going to happen. As if... no it's stupid. Nevermind." she sounded like she was shaking herself mentally, telling herself how stupid she was being.

"No, it's not... I feel that way too... but it might just be something that we drank, or ate.. we did share that poutine today... and besides, I have 30 pages on what we should do, where we need to go, maps, all that stuff. I also have some sheets on armoury, archery while on horseback and leather tanning." I smiled. It really did make me feel better, the fact that all those nights researching, and being quite paranoid, were paying off, even if I didn't need to use them. The comfort was enough.

I could hear her smile on the other end, "You know, oddly enough that actually makes me feel a little better." she paused. "But, what about the harvesting, equine and other papers that you said you were researching?"

"Well.. I realized that I was going overboard... but I still kept the other sheets, in a duotang, just in case." I frowned. "Why?"

"No reason.. don't worry about it... I need to go anyways.. my parents aren't home yet either.. Ria's getting hungry as well.. I'll see you tomorrow." she didn't sound convinced, but I let her go, and the phone clicked off and she hung up.

I pushed the off button and put the cordless phone back in it's holder and flopped back down on the couch. _Something's going to happen... and Tynk can sense it took.. it's not just me this time.. but... it wont happen. I'm being stupid..._ I groaned and clicked the computer on, trying to distract myself from all the horrible feelings I was getting.

But, that never works, does it?


	2. Chapter 2

**Still March 17th 1998, 20 minutes pre-change.**

"Lu! Lyn! Get down here and eat!" I yelled up the stairs grumpily.

_Just because you're scared doesn't mean that you need to take it out on them._ I thought reproachfully to myself.

I sat down at the kitchen table and spooned the creamy kraft dinner into my bowl, and got up again, plopping down on the couch and turning on the T.V. Lyn ran over and jumped me, missing the bowl by inches and taking the remote from me, turning it to the Family Channel. I tuned out, seeing as it was Baxter, the teenage art boy with personality issues.

_"If you were a panda, and had a gopher for a pet, would you still eat spaghetti? Even if the panda's name was spaghetti?"_ I giggled and realized I was doing that out loud. Elli was being random one day, and asked alot of people that. She's so utterly random, it makes me laugh.

I looked over at the clock. 6:05. I groaned. Mum and Dad were supposed to get here in about two hours. So, I had two hours to waste until I could sleep soundly, without fearing for burglars. So, with nothing to do but wash dishes, I did what any completely paranoid apocalipse obsessee would do. I broke into random song.

_"What have I done? I wish I could run_  
><em>Away from this ship goin' under<em>  
><em>Just tryin' to help, hurt everyone else<em>  
><em>Now I feel the weight of the world is<em>  
><em>On my shoulders<em>  
><em>What can you do when your good isn't good enough?<em>  
><em>When all that you touch tumbles down?<em>  
><em>'Cause my best intentions keep making a mess of things<em>  
><em>I just wanna fix it somehow<em>  
><em>But how many times will it take?<em>  
><em>Oh, how many times will it take for me?<em>  
><em>To get it right<em>  
><em>To get it ri-igh-ight<em>  
><em>Can I start again with my faith shaken?<em>  
><em>'Cause I can't go back and undo this<em>  
><em>I just have to stay and face my mistakes<em>  
><em>But if I get stronger and wiser<em>  
><em>I'll get through this<em>  
><em>What can you do when your good isn't good enough?<em>  
><em>When all that you touch tumbles down?<em>  
><em>'Cause my best intentions keep making a mess of things<em>  
><em>I just wanna fix it somehow<em>  
><em>But how many times will it take?<em>  
><em>Oh, how many times will it take for me?<em>  
><em>To get it right<em>  
><em>So I throw up my fist<em>  
><em>Throw a punch in the air<em>  
><em>And accept the truth that sometimes life isn't fair<em>  
><em>Yeah, I'll send down a wish<em>  
><em>Yeah, I'll send up a prayer<em>  
><em>And finally, someone will see<em>  
><em>How much I care!<em>  
><em>What can you do when your good isn't good enough?<em>  
><em>When all that you touch tumbles down?<em>  
><em>'Cause my best intentions keep making a mess of things<em>  
><em>I just wanna fix it somehow<em>  
><em>But how many it times will it take?<em>  
><em>Oh, how many times will it take for me?<em>  
><em>To get it right<em>  
><em>To get it ri-igh-ight,"<em> I finished with a flourish and Lu and Lyn rolled their eyes, turning back to the T.V. with muttured 'does she ever shut up?'s.

I made a face at them and turned away, going to the table. I danced around a bit, with my back to the T.V. I picked up my bowl and danced over to the kitchen counter. Just before I reached it, a blinding flash of white flared in front of my eyes, making them burn. When my eyes refocused, I could see that all the lights were out. And, not just that, but the streetlights were too. I opened the blinds to see better and what I saw made me gape. All the cars had stopped right in the middle of the road, and people were flocking around, trying to figure out what was wrong. A few kilometers away a fire flared up, and there was a loud bang. A plane had just fallen from the sky, landing on houses, and probably killing a lot of people.

I ran back to where the girls were sitting on the couch.

"I'm going to call mum on the cell. It and the cordless should both work." I ran up the stairs and into my room, grabbing the cordless. I clicked the call button but it wouldn't start up. "What the fuck? It was on full battery when I used it last." I muttered.

_Something's wrong. This isn't just a coincidence. There's a reason you were getting those feelings._ My mind whispered to me.

I went downstairs to the front window, hoping to see the digital light of a cell phone or a digital watch. Instead, the fire hasd flared up and engulfed dozens of homes near where I used to go to school. All the while it was slowly approaching. The people were running, grabbing what they had and sheperding their children with them.

"What the hell is this?" I whispered.

**March 17th 1998, two minutes pre-change.**

I groaned and spooned the soup into two bowls and walked to the top of the basement stairs. "TY! GET YOUR LAZY ASS UPSTAIRS IF YOU WANT ANY DINNER!"

_Nice Ry, real nice._ I thought to myself.

I sat down at the table which was in the middle of the kitchen and started to eat, and Ty slowly walked up the stairs and glared at me. He muttered something along the lines of 'bitch' under his breath and I did the super mature thing by sticking my toungue out at him.

"Fuck you!" I snapped.

His short brown hair was messy and his shirt was rumpled, making me think that he'd been in bed before I'd called him up. He glared at me again and went back to eating his soup. He was sitting across the table from me, his elbows resting on the granite counter top.

A blinding white light flared up in my vision and I yelped, my eyes stinging. "What the fuck!" I heard Ty yell.

I opened my eyes back up again and looked into complete blackness, with only the moon illuminating it. The cordless phones, digital watches, everything that ran on batteries, were completely dead. I felt my way over to Ty and he yelped when I stepped on his foot.

"Sorry." _Is this.. is this what Syrr was worried about? Is this what she was talking about with her wierd feeling? I guess I kinda owe her an apology. But.. it could just be a power outage._ I looked outside to see that all the streetlights were out, and the cars weren't moving._ A major one?_ I tried to reassure myself.

"Well shit." I stated.

**March 17th 1998, 30 seconds pre-change.**

"Rhea Renalli horrible child stehlen nicht meine brot!" _Horrible child do not take my bread!_ I shouted as my little sister raced around the room, her brown curls flying, and she waved the bread she'd just stolen from me in the air.

"Never!" she shouted back.

A blinding white light lanced through my vision in that instant, burning my eyes and making me trip. I heard a thud and Ria fell to the floor, muttering 'ow'. I blinked continuosly trying to clear my vision, getting nothing but black.

"Rhea? Are you okay?" I coughed.

"Yeah, what happened Tynk... there're no lights on.. at all. Not even streetlights." she answered back.

I heard some barking and the sound of pattering feet as Max ran into the room. He jumped into my lap, making a little whimpering noise, andd snuggled in close to me chest. Max is a miniature shnauzer, mostly grey with some black markings here and there.

_So this is why Syrr and I were getting such.. wierd feelings. _"Well shit. Damn! Fuck! Darn!" I covered my mouth with my hand. "Syrr's really rubbed off on me." I muttered. I sighed. "But, this situation is just right for swearing." I leant back against the table, closing my eyes. _ Maybe this'll all be over in the morning..._

**Hey guys.. well I guess guy, or girl, whatever, this is the second chapter. And, Arianna, if you read this, I couldn't find a better name for Max, so he stayed that way. And, I used the only thing I knew in german other then stehlen nicht meine brot, lole. And Meag, if you do say this, I know that you would never make Mike dinner, and you'd never call him up like that XD. Lole, had to get it so that everyone was together. But please review !**


	3. Chapter 3

I woke with Max skwirming in my lap. I patted his head and got up, to find myself in the kitchen, with Rhea lying on the tile floor a couple feet away. "What the..." memories of last night and the flash came back to me in a rush. I swore colorfully.

"Rhea wake up!" I ran over through the hall to the front room, looking out the window. The cars had all stopped moving, and their doors were open and the people were mostly gone. "Rhea!"

"Wha..?" she mumbled, yawning. She stumbled over here and her blue eyes widened when she saw everything. "Tynk, what happened?"

" 'Member the white flash?" she nodded. "Well, this is what happened after it." I motionned out to the cars. I dropped the thick curtain back into place, darkening the room quite a bit.

"Mom and Dad?" she asked.

"Not here." I responded. I looked up at the ceiling. "Let's just hope that this doesn't end up making us feel stupid."

I raced upstairs. "What're you doing?" Rhea called up.

"Packing." I answered.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

I picked up the list again, checking off all the things that I had.

_List for one person (me):_

_2 thick blankets_

_1 small pillow_

_Fuzzy Bunny (favourite stuffie)_

_glasses (if needed)_

_all the cans of food we have_

_all edible plants we have_

_cooler_

_all the fruits and veggies from the fridge_

_all meats and other things that can spoil_

_bars (choclate, chewy, sports, etc.)_

_weapons (just in case)_

_horse book_

_tooth brushes (as many as you have)_

_tooth paste (as much as you have)_

_deoderant (3-4 sticks)_

_clothes (warmest, then as much as can fit, only bring long jeans if you have room)_

_winter jaket_

_all other jakets_

_boots_

_shoes_

_socks (thermal and otherwise)_

_sunscreen!_

_edible plant seeds_

_PADS_

_TAMPONS_

_All medicines in the cabinet!_

_As much soap as we can fit_

_notebooks (in a knapsack)_

_pens_

_pencils_

_pencil crayons_

_crayons_

_markers_

_paints_

_knives/ cutlery_

_a few books_

_hair elastics, pins, etc._

_thread, sewing kit_

_flint_

_camping gear_

_breeches_

_riding helmet_

_bike helmet_

_rope_

_scissors_

_baseball bat_

I looked down at the list, feeling as if I was missing things. I groaned. I looked at all six of the suitcases we'd filled with stuff, and then at the pile of things we still needed to fit somewhere. There were tons of backpacks though, and I figured that we'd be able to use the little kiddie wagon that our parent's had used to take us to the park, to tow alot of the bags in until we could get them all on horses.

I finished packing them, and ended up with 6 large suitcases and one mini one, 6 backpacks, and one reusable grocery bag (the fabric kind).

"Well, let's go." I sighed. I felt as if I was going to burst. I was so scared, and I didn't want to leave my home, but I knew that we had to, or we'd be robbed, or worse.

Lucy cried silent tears and Annalyn just stood silently. They both followed as I exited the house, and brought my keys, as a reminder. I picked up our black cat, who had a little white spot on his tail, and one on his bellie, and locked the door. I fastened a makeshift collar around Spot's neck, and led him up the path. We didn't have the heart to leave him alone to die. I put Spot's carrying case on the top of the pile in the wagon, so that we'd be able to ride horses without any problem, and started pulling the wagon over to the barn, six or seven kilometers away.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-xx-x-x-x-x

"Do you believe me now?" I asked, my arms crossed.

Ty glared and looked out the front window again. He nodded grudgingly. "I guess I knid of have to, don't I?" he asked.

"Duh." I put my dark hair behind one of my ears and finished zipping up the suitcases. There were about 6 of them, all lined up. "Grab three, we need to get to the barn by noon or we'll not be there in time to meet Syrr and Tynk, and maybe Elli and Letta."

I grabbed one heavy bag and two lighter ones, leaving the heavier ones for my brother, since he was older and not that much stronger, but still stronger than me. I put the collar on Symba and wrapped it around my wrist, making sure that he couldn't run away. He'd be a good guard dog.. but then again so would Jazz, the huge golden doodle.

I turned around, halfway out the front door. Ty was still standing near the top of the basement stairs, looking indecisive.

"Are you coming, or not?" I asked. " 'Cuz I'm going with or without you."_ What a lie. I don't want to fucking go out there on my own! Who knows what the hell's happened elsewhere!_

Ty seemed to have decided to come with me, because he started fowards, and fell into step with me on the side walk. I gave my house one last glance and turned the corner, never to lay eyes on it again.

"Do you think that Mom and Dad are okay Ty?" I asked, after a few minutes of silence.

"Sure. Dad's a military guy, and he'll be with military people. Mom'll be somewhere just as safe. I'm sure of it." he assured me, but he didn't seem so sure about it.

_I'm probably never going to see my parent's again._ I realized with a pang of sadness. _I guess this is how orphans feel. What a shitty life._

**And this is how I end the third chapter. From now on it'll mostly be from Syrr's P.O.V but I may have some Tynks and some Rys in there too. Please tell me what you think, and stuff. lole, these are all based on real people, except for the people they meet later on, but yeah. Please Review!**


	4. Chapter 4

When we arrived at the barn, I made Lyn and Lu go into the barn, and keep the stuff safe. Not many people had been near the barn -all the cars had already been abandoned, probably because the houses are all close enough to walk to- but I didn't want to take any chances. I grabbed as many leads as I could, and went out to the farthest paddock, on the left, where four horses were standing, grazing unconcerned. I approached them, and clipped the leadropes on the first two -a 17hh red chesnut mare, Class Act, a.k.a Abby, if I remember correctly, and Encore, 16.2hh and between blood bay and red bay, which is dark brown-red body with darker points.- and started leading them to the barn.

I walked down the path again, and when I got to the barn, I put both of the horses on crossties. I went to the tack room and grabbed the grooming kits for these horses. "Groom them. Use this" I held up the respective curry combs, "then this," I held up the hard brushes, "and then these." I held up the soft brushes. I then went and picked up the hoof picks. "Don't use these anywhere, I'll pick their hooves when you guys are done, and show you how. Their feet are really sensitive, and you can hurt them if you don't do it properly. With brushing, you can't really mess up."

"Gee thanks Syrr. Nice to know the level of confidence you have in us." Lyn said sarcastically, picking up a curry comb and beginning to brush Abby in circles. Lu looked over and copied her older sister. I smiled and left them, with the extra lead ropes still over my shoulder.

"And next for Lance, Tyme and Lola." I walked towards the entrance of the barn, grabbing three apples on the way.

When I got back to the field I'd just been in, I called out, "Lance!" He lifted his dark bay head, with the little star in the center, near his forehead. He whinnied and approached when I showed him the apple. I opened the wooden gate and let him come to me. He took the apple when I offered it and I clipped his lead rope on, winding it around the fencing of the paddock, and walked over to Lola. She was a darker browny-bay colour at the front, and lighter and lighter until she became almost chestnut at her haunches.

"C'mere sweetie." I held out my hand to her, with one of the other apples. She approached slowly, and I stopped. She then came and took the apple. I clipped her lead rope on and led her over to Tyme. He lifted his dappled gray head and shook it. He turned away, deciding that we weren't too interesting.

I sighed and shook my head, walking over and clipping on his lead under his head. I lead them both back to where Lance was waiting and took the two leads in one hand, and used the other to lead Lance with the last apple. _Tyme can get one when we get back to the barn._

"Come on Lance, follow the apple. You can have it if we can just get to the barn." I grimaced in pain as I twisted my anchle in a rut in the path. I looked over to the road and saw six forms in the distance. There were two bigger ones, obviously guys, and three that were mostly the same size, and one that was smaller. I kept leading the horses to the barn, but I looked back every so often. When they got parallel with the REC (Royale Equestrian Center) property I could see them better. What I saw made me grin.

_Tynk, Ry, Elli, Rhea, Ty, Cam... but where's Letta?_

I hurried to the barn and when I realized that there were no more spare stalls I walked them right through the barn, and clipped them on the fence outside, right near some choice grass.

"Is someone there Syrr?" Lu asked, her voice small.

I patted her curls and grinned. "There most definately are."

Lyn looked up and over Abby's back. She put the hard brush on her back. "Ry, Tynk, Elli, Letta, Rhea?" she asked.

"Not Letta." I looked away. "But I'm going to go greet them. You guys stay here and watch the horses, make sure that they behave."

I walked away again, towards the driveway. The group was already halfway down the driveway, opening the gate up. Elli closed it behind the others and jogged to catch up to them. They were all dragging suitcases and luggage. I grinned and waved. When they got closer I ran over, not wanting to run too far from my sisters.

"Let's talk in the barn, okay? I don't want to leave my sisters alone." they nodded and Ty gave me a wierd look. The metal buckle of one of the lead ropes hit me on the hip and I realized I still had three or four of them over my shoulder. "Post-Change chic," I twirled in a circle, "origional, eh?"

"Yes, that's _one_ way to think of it." Ty muttered. Cam just rolled his eyes.

When we got into the barn I went and grabbed the grooming kits for Tyme, Lola and Lance. "Tynk, show Lu, Elli and Cam how to pick the hooves of a horse. You can tell them the brushing order too, but that's more straight forward." I turned to Ry, Ty, Lyn and Rhea. "Rhea, you must already know how, and Ry, I'm sure you do too. Why don't you go and groom either Lola, Lance or Tyme." Rhea, obviously, took Lance's kit, seeing as Lance was her horse, and Ry took Lola's kit. I went over to Abby.

"She has been brushed, but her hooves were not picked, so she's the perfect example. There'll be plenty of horses to practice on too." I tried picking up her hoof and when she didn't respond, I leaned on her a bit and forced it up. I held the tip of her hoof and proceeded to show them how. "Do you get it?" I asked, when I was finished, dropping her hoof.

"Yeah." Lyn and Ty both said.

"Good. Each of you do a hoof." They nodded and proceeded to do just that. When they were done Abby had three clean hooves. "Finish up with Abby please Lyn, and Ty, come with me. You get to groom Tyme."

I brought him over and got Ty to give Tyme an apple, thereby making them okay with each other. I left him to that and went to Tynk. "How's everyone doing?" I whispered.

"Pretty good. They need more practice, but I have a feeling that there's going to be plenty of time for that." I nodded.

"We should go and get the rest from the field, and assign horses to each person." I looked out to the field. There were twelve out in the field. "There are twenty-eight horses that we want to bring."

"But Tinkerbell is only a pony, she'll slow us down. And Tea Biscuit is just plain mean. Kari has a yearling. There are tons that aren't very reliable." she screwed her eyebrows together.

I grabbed her wrist and got her to walk beside me, so that we were going to the field. "But Kari's yearling is a male, yes?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the horses in the field.

"Yeah, so he'd be useful for breeding, with the mares that are all waaaaay older than him." she smiled. "You're going to be a great leader Syrr."

I chuckled darkly. "I guess we'll never know, will we?"

"What makes you say that?" she asked.

"Ty or Cam're going to want to play boss." I rolled my eyes.

"You never know Syrr, they may surprise you."

"Anyways, I don't want any part in leading this camp." I said.

"Uhuh. Well, It's not about you. It's about _us._" She gestured to the barn. "_All_ of us."

I rolled my eyes and punched her lightly on the arm. "Why don't you be leader then?" I asked.

"Because 1) I don't want to 2) I'm kinda scared of Ty, and you're not really supposed to be scared of your subordinates." she grinned.

"True... go and get those far ones will you?"I smiled at her.

"Oh ya, I go for the far ones, and you get the ones right and close," I stepped in the mud and I sunk in to the tip of my riding boots, "and completely in the mud." she giggled.

"I gave you the better option. At least you don't have the possibility of getting stuck in the mud, with nothing to do but push yourself out of goodness-only-know-what."

She nodded. "I'll take Tea Biscuit, Hanna, Grace, Chester, Deke and Dreamer." she groaned. "Almost all moody horses. Especially Chester... but I guess we'll get him to like us eventually."

I grinned. "And I get Talisman, Salut, Harry, Daisy, Stormy and Sprinkles. Sprinkles can be mean too."

"Yeah, _can_ is the operative word there." she waved. "See you on the other side!" she grabbed six lead ropes and set off. I grabbed two more lead ropes and started making my way slowly over to the horses. My boots kept getting stuck, and when i pulled them out there was a loud sucking noise.

Finally, I made it to Sprinkles. Sprinkles is a medium-large pony, a brown colour. 13.2hh, so only about three hands shorter than the other horses.

"Hey there Sprinkles. Come here girl, let me just hook you up to a lead rope. That's a good girl." I soothed, clipping her in. I whooped triumphantly, the hardest one was done. I squelched over to the fence and found a small spot, about a foot squared, that was firm, and I stood there, tying a light barn knot with the lead, so that i could pull it off quickly in case on an emergency.

I blew my brown hair out of my face and started moving towards Talisman. Talisman was grey mostly, with alot of white around his head. He was 16.2hh. He wasn't the most reliable horse, but i figure, Ry or Rhea can take care of him as one of their horses, seeing as they both have experience with horses. I clipped his lead rope on and he turned and tried to bite me. I hit his head away, not hurting but warning him.

"Hey! Don't bite me! I bite back!" I turned and moved over to Stormy, a red chestnut pony with darker legs. She was one of the horses I hoped to take care of, seeing as she was extremely loyal and she was as fast as a full grown horse.

"Hey sweetheart, how're you?" I smiled and stroked her neck lovingly. She nuzzled my hand affectionnately and whinnied a little. I clipped her lead rope in, and she followed easily, while I had to almost drag Talisman over to where I was keeping Sprinkles tied. I tied them in too and patted them all and turned again. "Don't move!" i called over my shoulder. Of course, I didn't get an answer, but I smiled anyways. I loved being with horses, and even the Change couldn't take that away from me.

"Salut!" I called. He lifted his white head, shaking his mane around. His lower half was dappled grey, while he was mostly white. "Do you want to come here and make this easier for me?" He stood where he was, obviously not getting it. "I guess not." I mumbled. When I got to him he gave me a horsey grin and I hugged him. "Big goof."

Ten minutes later, I had Harry - a brown horse with white socks- and Daisy - a light chestnut 15hh mare- with the other horses and me, walking back to the barn. I met up with Tynk at the place where we'd parted.

"Talisman is being such a brat-" I smacked his head away again, so that he wouldn't bite me, "today."

"So is Chester, but thats normal." she smiled.

"When we get back I'm going to talk to them about picking horses. I think I'll make it so that we each pick one, then another, then another, so that everyone gets at least one horse of their choice, and eventually they'll fall in love with them anyways, so it's all good." I kicked a rock away from me and stepped into the barn. "Coming through! And we need some groomers over here! There are twelve new horses and nine people here so we need to hurry ourselves up! But, before we do, I need to ask you guys something."

I made sure they were all listening. Ty was holding a brush over Tyme, seeming to have become best buds with him within the last half hour. The others were all standing near their respective horses as well.

I cleared my throat and then continued. "How do you guys feel about getting assigned three horses to look after, each?"

"That's cool." Ry smiled.

"Yay!" Lu exclaimed. "Can I have Abby?" she asked eagerly.

"Anybody else want Abby?" I looked around. "Then yes Lu, you can have Abby." She squealed and jumped up and down, hugging the mare and smiley hugely.

I looked over at Ty, who was on Lu's right. "Who do you want?" I asked.

"Is it okay if I have Tyme?" he asked. I looked around for any objections, and getting none, nodded and he smiled.

"Cam?" He was to the right of Ty.

"Well, I was hanging with Deke over here and he actually seems to like me, which I've been told, is a miracle. So, is it okay if I have him?" There were no objections.

"Perfect. Lyn?"

She looked down at the ground and blushed. "Encore?" she mumbled.

"Definately. Ry?" she was the closest to my left, standing with Hanna, -a black mare- having navigated towards her.

"This one?" she asked hopefully.

"Sure. And it's Hanna. Elli?"

"Delilah." she stroked the white mare lovingly.

I smiled at her. They were all already falling in love with their horses. "Tynk?"

"Lance. Duh."

"I object!" Rhea snapped. "He's my horse too!" she said indignantly.

"Well, you can still hang out with him and stuff, and just think, the three you get will be your horses and you'll fall in love with them, so can you just let her have him?" I tried to persuade her.

Rhea sighed. "Fine Tynk. You can have him."

"Thanks Rhea." she smiled.

"Good. Rhea, what horse do you want?" I asked.

"Ummmmm... I'll have... Grace." Rhea decided.

"Perfect, and nobody can object, because I'm the only one left to pick. I think I'll choose...Stormy." I looked around. I was about to open my mouth to tell Lu to choose again when Ry interrupted me.

"Why don't you pick another, because you'll be the last one to pick, other then Rhea." Ry said. Everyone else agreed so I smiled.

"Does anybody else want Harry?" Nobody did.

In the end the horses were assigned as follows:

Me: Stormy, Harry, Pearl (a dark blood bay mare) and Shadow (Kari's yearling, dark bay, just like his mommy)

Ry: Hanna, Grace(a black mare with white socks) and Daisy

Tynk: Lance, Mia(brown with giant white splotches) and Roo(16hh chestnut gelding)

Lu: Abby, Strawberry(grey mane and tail, white body with some brown on tail and legs) and Tinkerbell (an off pinky-dun white)

Lyn: Encore, Sprinkles and Wesley (dark bay, with a fairly large star, and lighter around the stomach)

Elli: Delilah, Chester(red chestnut gelding) and Salut

Rhea: Talisman, Monster Boy(a red bay) and Tea Biscuit(a normal brown pony)

Cam: Lola, Deke(a bay) and Dreamer(a dark chestnut, lighter the farther back you go)

Ty: Tyme, Zeus(a dapple grey) and Kari(dark bay)

"So, now that that's settled, we need to find a way to fit these suitcases on the horses without murdering them." I said. I looked around at the others, who were now standing with their horses either in stalls or near them, tied with the lead rope to the stall. I got my first really good look at the barn since I'd arrived here today. I'd grown so used to being in this barn when I came for lessons that I was comfortable with the wooden walls, and concrete flooring, the peeling paint, and the beaten up roads.

"Well, there are a bunch of saddle packs, that will probably fit most of the food and drinks in them, and we can transfer the personal belongings, and toiletries into the backpacks." Ry pointed to the tack room. "I saw the bags there when I was looking for some grooming kits."

"Really? I've never even seen them." Tynk frowned.

"Well, I went looking in some unmarked cabinets before I looked in the ones with the names on them." Ry blushed.

_She's embarassed that she didn't think of looking at the labels first, but that mistake may have just saved our sorry asses._

"Perfect." I grinned. "Who wants to go and get them all? I'll get the cans and stuff out of the suitcases and help people organize their belongings."

"I'll go, since I know where they are." Ry said.

"I'll go as well, 'cuz I'm not a very good organizationer." Lu smiled.

I opened my mouth to tell her that 'organizationer' wasn't a word, and then thought, what's the point? There's not going to be any more school, which will probably start to bug me within weeks.

"Good, I think that's enough for that anyways." I got the suitcases together, and then got the backpacks together. "My backpacks, and Lu's and Lyn's are already filled with personal stuff, and toiletries, so they're fine, and they'll go on the horse we're riding." I picked them up and put them aside. I decided to sit down on the ground, figuring that my breeches were already completely dirty, and more dirt wouldn't hurt them. The others followed suit.

"So, do we just empty the bags and put our personal stuff behind us, and our food and drink supplies in front?" Ty asked. I nodded, and started with one of my suitcases.

Ry and Lu made about four trips, and brought us twenty seven good sized saddle bags. By then, we'd transferred most of our personal belongings, like clothes, glasses, and such, and our toiletries, to the backpacks. Everyone had about three backpacks each, and all were good sized ones too. I looked at our huge pile of food. There were some things that were going to expire sooner then others and I decided that we should probably have those on the top, so that we had the ones that lasted longer, for later on.

Two hours later, we had divvied up all the food and water so that every horse was carrying as much as they could. Mia had the most, because she was the strongest. The horses carrying the riders had less then the riderless ones too. I decided to ride Stormy this time, and went to work getting the others on their horses and giving them the basic riding instructions. Harry and Pearl were attatched on the right of Stormy, and then Shadow was on Stormy's left. The others had both their pack horses on their right. Shadow was only on my left because I wanted to make sure that he wasn't bullied or hurt by anything. He was still young and needed to be watched a little more closely.

"You know, this would be so much easier if we had a wagon." Elli muttered.

I giggled. "Would you like to make one?"

She stuck her tongue out at me and giggled back.

"I would, but there's definately not enough wood here." Ry said sarcastically.

Tynk snorted with me and Cam and Ty just rolled their eyes with a holier-then-thou attitude. Lu didn't get it, and Lyn was leaning close to Encore's neck, trying to explain it to her. We were all ready. _But where will we go?_ I wondered. I looked up and saw that the sun was beginning to set. It was probably around six, give or take a few minutes. I looked to the left, and saw some shapes slowly approaching, and they looked armed. I'd made sure before that everyone had something that they could defend themselves with, until we could get to Wal-Mart and get some more useful equipment.

"Lets go, now. Trot on." I called back to them all. We rode in a loose formation of sorts, me in front with Ry and Tynk on either side, with Hanna and Lance's muzzles reaching Stormy's barrel, or mid-section. Elli was a horse-length behind Ry, and Lu was a horse-length behind me, and Lyn was a horse-length behind Tynk. Rhea was behind Lu and Ty and Cam were both riding a length behind her. So, we were in a formation that from the air would have looked like a messed up pentagon. I looked behind me, and saw that the people were still about a kilometer away, which was good. We were about 600 meters away from the barn now, and we had to leave Beau and Diego. They were too old to do anything. Strawberry was pretty old too, but not nearly as old as Beau and Diego.

_Let's just hope that they can run away, or want to run away. We let them out in the field but... who knows? We may end up seeing them again, but with riders._ I thought.

"We should get to Wal -Mart, or somewhere where we can rest, and assure our safety." I said to Ry and Tynk, keeping my eyes facing the front. I could hear Lu bouncing around a bit in her saddle, from the trotting, which I'd have to fix, but for now, was going to have to ignore. The others were doing pretty good for beginners. Some of the horses were pretty uncooperative when we were putting on their saddles, and then putting their saddle bags on. We weren't using the saddles right now, but eventually, we were going to switch horses when we rode, so we'd need a saddle that fit the horse.

"Syrr! Incoming!" Ty shouted from behind. I turned Stormy and thankfully Ry turned Hanna too, or we would've collided. I saw that the people had gotten alot closer, obviously they'd been running. There were two men, and two boys in their teens. They were about 200 meters from us, and coming fast. They both had makeshift weapons, and they weren't giving off the happy we're-here-to-help-protect-kids vibe. My face went hard, and my palms started to sweat cold. _This is it then. This is when I see if I'm a sissy or if I'm able to protect my own._ I pulled out the huge meat knife I'd taken from my kitchen, and then cover the other knife, so that they wouldn't see it until it was too late. I dismounted, since I'd only endanger my horses if I tried fighting on tehm, and gave the reins to Lyn, and so Ry. Ty and Cam gave their reins to Rhea. We weren't going to run, they'd only catch up to us later. We'd already decided that this is what we'd do in this situation, until we were sure we could get away for good.

They were now fifty feet away. "Hey bitch you can still surrender now, and we'll let you and yours off easy." one of them grinned. He was one of the older ones, and he had brown hair, flecked here and there with grey. The other older one looked really weak, and tired, and as if he was going to drop any second. He had blonde hair, that was almost white. The teens looked really psycho. One had black hair, greased over his face and falling to his neck, and his face was pale. The other was of middle eastern descent, with short cropped hair. They were both about 5'8'' ish.

_Thank goodness Tynk'd thought to teach them the colours in german. Let's just hope that they remember_.

"Ty, shwartz und weise. Cam, shwartz- braun. Ry und Tynk, long und shwartz," _shit they don't know the german word for long yet! I just hope that the others wont get what I'm saying even though I'm not giving much away..._ "Me, gelb." I was basically telling Ty to get the one that had black and white hair, Cam to get the middle eastern one, with black-brown hair, Ry and Tynk to collaborate and get the teen with black hair, and me to get the adult with blonde hair, who llooks like he's going to die from exaustion soon. _I'll be able to help Tynk and Ry soon then, I hope._ I switched to french. "Est-ce que vous comprenez?" I asked. _Let's hope that they do get what i said._

"Oui." they all answered. _Perfect, at least that makes it a little easier._

"Oh, and to answer your.. offer, like hell, asswhole." I said to the salt-and-pepper one.

He shrugged and smiled a sick smile, "Have it your way then." They rushed us and the distance closed withing seconds. I ran towards the blonde one and he tried to smash at me with his baseball bat. "Jackass! That could've seriously injured me!" I snapped.

He just sneered and tried to sweep my feet out from under me. I jumped over the bat and thrusted with my knife, getting him right in the middle of his chest. He dropped to the ground, coughing blood, and the knife was ripped out of my grip. "Shit!" I swore. I looked down at the man and almost vomited at what i saw. His mouth was all bloody, and his chest looked almost ripped, which must have happened when the knife was wrenched out of my grasp. I swallowed it back and pried the knife free of the dead man. I closed his eyes with my fingers and hurried over to where Ry and Tynk were getting pretty beat up. This guy had a knife, and he looked as if he knew how to us had a long shallow scratch up he forearm, and Tynk had a small one near the edge of her mouth.

He jabbed at Ry with his left hand, and I ran and jabbed his right forearm with my knife, getting it in good and deep. It went right by the bone, probably nicking a bit on the way by. I pulled it out quickly, and moved out of reach as he swiped blindly with knife, howling in pain.

"Thanks Syrr." Ry panted. Tynk just nodded. I looked over and wasn't paying attention for a second, and felt a pain on my cheek. It felt hot, and when I looked up, I saw that the black haired guy had pulled himself together, and that my blood was now on his knife. I heard the low growling, yowling and barking coming from Jazz, Simba, Max and Spot. Obviously, they weren't taking too kindly to these not-so-kind strangers.

"Karma's a bitch!" he spat. _Definately of the not-so-kind disposition. _

"And Karma goes both ways _jackass!_" I snarled and jumped at him._ Okay, maybe that wasn't very kind either.. but he started it! _He moved backwards, not thinking about stabbing back, and I got him in the gut. I fell to the ground on top of him, and before getting up, I twisted my knife, making sure that he could not repair himself. I bit back bile and pulled out the knife, getting out of range.

"Make sure he doesn't suffer for long." I said to Ry and Tynk and hurried over to where Cam and Ty had both dispatched their opponents, with what looked like alot of difficulty. Ty had two cuts that were visible, and bleeding, but not too badly. Cam had a few more, but they were smaller, and now bleeding anymore. I heard a cry, and then it went silent. I checked all their pulses, and made sure that they weren't breathing anymore, and then dragged them all over to the side of one of the cars. I put it on the side that most people wouldn't go on, so that even though they'd smell it, they wouldn't have to see it.

Ty and Cam looked at my face and their eyes widened. "Is it bad?" I asked, worriedly. They could just nod their heads, which didn't make me feel any better. I felt my face and realized that i was bleeding a fair bit. The cut was from the edge of my mouth on the right side, to the side of my right eye. I had about a centimeter from the edge of my mouth to the cut, and the cut was about a centimeter from the edge of my eye as well. "I'm really lucky, aren't I?" I asked.

"Yes. Yes you are." Ry stated, looking at my face. "We need to get to Wal-Mart soon, so we can get you fixed up Syrr."

"Okay. It's almost dark too." I climbed onto Stormy, and waited until the others had too, and then called back, "Trot on!" to the rest of them.

We got to Wal-Mart when it was almost dark, giving us jst enough light to find the entrance. We had to go in single file, which meant that we had to unclip the horses from each other and lead them in seperately. I was anxious of doing that, but at least noboody would go looking for us in the middle of a store. We went to the camping equipment place, where we grabbed some small tents and some compact yet warm sleeping bags. Then we went to the medical place, where we stocked up on medicines, and bandages, and polysporin, and other useful things.

"Time to fix you up, before I can't see anymore." Ry said, making me sit down. She cleaned out the cut, and winced when she saw it. "At least it isn't deep enought to need stitches, because that would hurt like hell. It's just barely out of stitch deepness though. It's not hanging open though, so that's a good sign." she smiled. I tried my hardest not to say 'I know what are good signs and bad signs, we _did_ take that medical course together' because 1) that would be unneeded 2) it's not as if I could do it myself and 3) she was just trying to reassure me.

"I really dont know how I'm supposed to get a bandage around that though, so I'm going to put some polysporin on it and put a long gauze pad on it, and then tape it with medical tape to your face. It's going to look wierd, but it'll help it heal faster." she smiled.

"Thanks Ry." I looked over to where Lu and Lyn were sitting anxiously, watching. "I'm okay you two. No dying for us today." they perked up a bit after that. Rhea and Tynk were brushing down their horses, and so were Cam and Ty. "Why don't you guys go groom your horses?" I asked, smiling, and wincing. _I'm not going to be a pretty smiler anymore._ I sighed. They got up and did as I asked, smiling once they got to their horses.

"This is going to get really old, you know?" I said. "The bandaging, the worry. We need more people. People who can help us defend our family." before she could say we weren't actually related I interupted her. "We're a family now Ry, in the closest way other than blood. Horrible things bring people together." I stated.

"Yeah, I guess they do." she agreed and her hands dropped from my face. "There. All done."

I got up and went to the mirror, which I could still sort of see. There was just enough light filtering in to make my face out. It looked pretty bad, even without any blood anymore. The bandage was covering almost my whole right half of my face. It made me look... broken? No. Fragile? Maybe. I shook those thoughts from my mind and went over to the others.

We decided to get some knives as well, and the like, from the hunting section, while Ty, Rhea, Tynk, Lu and Lyn stayed with the horses, and the dogs and cat. They were all bristling visibly.

I broke the glass of the gun cabinet, and proceeded to lod the gun, put the safety on, walk far enough away so I would hit anything important, and took off the safety. I pulled the trigger and there was a clicking noise, but no loud noise, nothing getting hit.

"What the...?" Elli breathed.

I reloaded the gun and pulled the trigger. It didn't shoot again. "What the hell?" I tried again, and it didn't work. Then it dawned on me. "The guns don't work either... that means... we're living in the same way that they probably lived in the thirteenth century..."

"This sucks." Elli stated.

I snorted. "We can't use guns on them, but they can't use guns on us." I turned, squinting now, to make out the form of a bow, and arrows to go with it, in a glass case. There looked like there were others in cases below as well. "But there are bows..." I whispered, and broke the glass as well, grabbing all the cases. There were tons of arrows, and there was even an advertisement for a make your own arrows quide on the inside of the pacage.

"Jackpot." I grinned. "We can check them out in the morning."

**So, I hope you guys liked this chapter, and I know it was really long and stuff but I can never find a good spot to stop the chapter anymore, because the clifhangers aren't coming very easily anymore XD Please review!**


	5. Chapter 5

It's been two whole weeks since the Change, and we still hadn't gotten as far as Richmond. As if we were riding horseback and only going two kilometers or so an hour. Oh wait! We _were_. Not that I hate horseback riding or horses or naturey stuff, because trust me, I don't. But, I'd give up all the horses and nature and everything that I love if we could just go back to normal. Well.. maybe not horses...

I was on Harry today, and I liked Stormy's gait better, because it was smoother, but Harry was so much sweeter. Pearl was sweet too, but her attention span was terrible, seeing as she was so young. I was taking point again, and we were all just talking.

"Like a gazelle!" Elli cried.

I grinned and said with her, "Boing! Boing! Boing!" and my scar twinged.

We all laughed, even Cam and Ty, which was getting pretty rare, seeing as they were older, and had more... I'm not going to say 'mature' because they aren't, but let's say different humor.

"I wonder if we could ride to africa and meet a gazelle..." Lu said.

I snorted. My little nine-year-old. I turned to her and smiled. "Lu sweetie, we can't walk on water yet, but when we can, I'll be sure to let you know."

"What?" she asked.

Ry rode over to her and explained it to her. Lu scowled at me. "Don't be sarcastic Syrr! I don't appreciate it!"

I rolled my eyes and rode on. I heard a loud crack coming from behind and turned Harry around, Shadow, Stormy and Pearl following easily. Standing there was a girl about 5'8'', with golden brown hair that was wavy and went to her mid-back. She was very dirty, and her clothes were ripped and she was stumbling around, crying. She was coming towards us. She was also bloody, but not too bloody, and it looked somewhat dry.

I could feel her staring at my scar, which was now pink, mostly healed. It made me look grim and as if I was straining myself.

"Syrr?" Cam called. I rode forward quickly and took out my bow, and knocked an arrow, but kept the string loose and the arrow pointed at the ground.

"Who are you?" I asked warningly.

She looked up and her eyes widened. I instantly recognized her, when I was closer. She was so disheveled, and different from the last time I'd seen her. "Syrr? Is that you?" she said hoarsly, around the tears.

"Oh Letta!" I got down off Harry and put the arrow bac in the saddle quiver. I put the bow around my body and lead Letta over to Cam.

"Put her on either Dreamer or Lola?" I asked. He nodded from Deke's back. He got off and I gave her to him, and he helped her onto Dreamer. She was really unsteady but she was alright.

I had us keep going, and I got Ry to take point. "WHat happened Letta?"

She shuddered and then sucked in a breath. "Th-th-they k-k-killed my p-parents and my b-brother Syrr. They k-k-killed them."

"Who's they Letta?" I asked.

Tears were now streaming down her face, and her lip was quivering. "Six men, of different ages. They tried to- they almost-"

"That's okay Letta, we don't need to know any more, you don't need to talk about it anymore." I soothed. I motionned for Elli to come over and comfort her, seeing as they were really close before the Change, and they'd still be now too. I rode up to Ry and Tynk and told them of what had happened. Ty and Cam were talking quietly, and Rhea, Lu and Lyn were all talking together. Elli had gotten Letta to stop crying, so that was good. We entered onto a highway, with so many abbandoned cars, and trucks. We clip-clopped down, making a fair bit of noise. which made me pretty uneasy, seeing as it could attract unwanted attention.

It was beggining to get dark again, and we needed to find shelter soon unless we wanted to use the tents, which we hadn't tried yet. I figured that we shouldn't do the store thing again though, with those men so close.

"Oi! What say you guys to trying out the tents tonight?" I called, turning my horses around again.

They all rode up to me and we all made a circle, including everyone. I looked around at each face, and they all approved. "Perfect. Let's fast trot it and get off this highway at the next exit, or the closest entrance to the forest. We're going to do some camping tonight." I grinned.

Elli and Ry whooped, always ones for camping out in the tents in Ry's backyard when we could, and the others smiled.

"So how're we going to set up the tents? There are four tents." Ry asked.

"Well, I was thinking that we'd put a tent in the almost center, the fire will be the actual center. Then, we'd put a circle around the fire, circling that center tent. I'll put Lu, Rhea and Lyn in the center one, Letta and Elli in one, Cam and Ty in one, and then Me, You and Tynk in the last one. WHat do you think about that?" I asked.

"I like it." she agreed.

"Me too." Tynk piped in from behind us.

"Haven't you heard it's rude to eaves drop?" I turned in my saddle and grinned.

We got to the turn off and we turned, and got off the highway, and turned again, going to the forest. Thank goodness there was a trail so we rode that until we found a good sized clearing. I dismounted and smiled. "Perfect." I untacked my horses as the others did so too, and tied their lead to a tree, loose enough so that they could munch on leaves and grass and such. I brushed them out, and started putting up the tents. The others found it easy too, thank goodness for instructions. We had the tents up within a half hour. I moved some logs and grabbed some stone, clearing leaves and andything flammable away from the fire circle and placed the stones around it.

Finally, just before it got fully dark, I had a fire going. We all positionned the logs around it so that we were in a circle and I smiled.

"Dinner time!" I took out ten cans of whatever, and handed them around. We opened them and grabbed sticks. We stuck the end on the fire for a little bit to sanitize them and then let them cool in the air for a minute or two, them using them to scoop out the food from the can. Nobody had brought soup, which was really good. We didn't have any bowls.

Soon, we all departed, and went to sleep, except me, since I was taking the first watch. I had my bow strung and the rest of the arrows by my side, and I had made the fire go low, so it was just glowing, giving me enough light to just make out everything. I was leaning against a tree trunk andI had the best view of the camp. Cam had volunteered to watch on the other side, and I let him, not protesting that I could do it on my own, so I wasn't paying much attention to his half. Just enough to make sure that there wasn't anything bad, or anything being missed.

Two hours later I got up slowly and went to wake up Tynk for the second watch, when I heard a branch snap. I kept crouched, and brought the bow to the ready. Appearance always helps, because they don't know that I hit targets just as much as I miss them. I saw a figure moving in the shadows, and it looked male. There was one other figure approaching that also looked male. They seemed to be surrounding the camp. I tried whistling, and when that failed, I called out loudly.

"Stop right where you are!" I didn't take my eyes off them and didn't move from my cover either. So, they couldn't see me, but I could see them.

One stepped forwards, holding his hands up, palms forwards in the international we-mean-you-no-harm sign. He had darker brown hair, or what looked like it - you can't really tell in the middle of the night. "Come out and talk." he said. It didn't sound much like a question.

"Come out and talk what?" I asked and made it sound like I was mildly interested.

He scowled and took in a deep breath. "Come out and talk _please_." he spat.

"I'd rather not, but thanks for the offer. And I can see you weapons. I'm not stupid. Or blind." I smiled.

"Okay, you know what? I don't believe you're going to shoot us!" The other behind him said.

"Don't tempt me." I called back. I heard some rustling behind me, and almost turned to shoot them.

"It's me, don't shoot Syrr." Tynk whispered. I nodded and kept my eyes on the guys.

"Why don't we just talk this out?" the leader called again.

"When you put your weapons down, we will." I said and then groaned. "We'll be here for hours at the rate this is going." I whispered to Tynk.

"We will if you will." he called, still searching for me in the trees and bushes.

"But, it's your own fault for trying to attack my camp. So, we're not putting down our weapons. We're trying to be kind bud. We can see you, you can't see us. Therefore, we can shoot you, and you can't shoot us." I replied.

"Fine." he turned to his crony and had him put his weapons down in the clearing. He whistled and two other came from either side of the camp. They also put all their weapons down and then they put their hands up.

"Stand five feet away from each other." I called. They did as I asked and I stood up. It took awhile for them all to notice me but when they did their eyes widened.

"A _girl?_" One exclaimed incredulously. They were all staring at the pink and still freshly healed scar running from the ccorner of my right eye to the corner of my mouth, on the right side.

_Is my voice really that masculine... I'll think about that later..._

Tynk then stood and Ty, Ry and Rhea came out. Elli and Letta were probably watching Rhea, Lyn and Lu. Thankfully. Cam was probably taking watch on the other side.

"What? Why didn't anybody ever tell me?" I answered, rolling my eyes. I stepped forwards, my bow still at the ready, but now pointing at the ground.

"Well, we figured that the head was a girl with some puberty issues." the leader said.

"Well, obviously, you thought wrong." I said, smiling.

"Ry, Tynk, Ty, will you guys make sure that they all get to the campfire without distroying anything? I want to grab all their weapons." I asked.

I turned and started walking towards the weapons.

"Sure Syrr." they answered and I smiled.

I got to the weapons when I heard one of the guys exclaim, "You make them call you _Sire?_"

"Dumbass." I muttered. I turned back to them, my arms full with weapons, and called over to them. "That's my _name_ dumbass! S-Y-R-R. Syrr."

That completely shut him up. When I got to the fire, and counted the horses, just in case, I looked the guys over for the first time. The one of the far left of the guys was a head taller then Tynk. His hair was a little darker then her gold-blonde and his hair was also slightly curly. He had fair skin and some muscle just peeking through his shirt. His eyes were green-blue, and stuck on Tynk. I smiled. I would _definitely_ tease her about that later. I deposited the weapons just outside my tent and Elli came out and took them inside. I guess that's where they'd taken Rhea, Lu and Lyn. I heard some growling and yowling from inside the tent. The cat and dogs.

"Name?" I asked him. He looked up at me and looked like he was going to do something rude.

I raised my eyebrow at him and he closed his mouth, then reopened it. "Dake." I nodded and continued on.

The guy on Dake's right was shorter, closer to 5'6'' or 5'7''. He had black hair and dark brown eyes. He was slimmer then the other guys, but he also looked faster. He looked pretty bored.

"Name?" I asked him.

"Justen." he answered through his teeth. Note to self: he hides his emotions well.

The guy to the right of Justen had dark brown hair, cut fairly short, only a few inches long. His eyes were gold-brown and he was sneering. He was about 5'10'', about the same height as Dake. Ry was standing behind him, and I could only actually see her hands. I bit back a laugh and nodded at him.

"Name?"

"Dylan." he answered easily, with a grin.

I rolled my eyes and turned to the last one. The leader. He had darker brown hair then Justen, and it covered his deep green eyes slightly. He was the tallest of the four, at about 6'0''. He looked down on me with what seemed to be a half scowl, half smirk. It didn't ruin his face at all. His muscles were there but not enough there to be all hmm-did-he-take-steroids-before-the-change-and-then-go-into-withdrawl-therefore-reducing-his-muscle-mass?

"Name?" I asked.

"Christian. But you can call me Sexy. What's your name?" he was now smirking fully. He obviously wasn't fazed by my attractive scar screwing up the whole right half of my face.

"Syrr. But you can call me Uninterested." I smiled sweetly and turned away. I heard some snickers and rolled my eyes.

I opened the tent and my assumption was proved right. Rhea, Lu and Lyn were being watched by Elli and Letta. "Hey you guys can come out. The guys wont hurt you. They don't have the guts to try at the mo." I smiled. Lu grabbed my hand tightly and Lyn followed us out. Elli and Letta were the last to exit the cabin, with Rhea.

"What is this? A girls only camp?" Dake asked and then looked at Ty and Cam who'd just appeared. "Other then you two..." he said and then decided to stop talking.

"Why were you guys trying to surround the camp?" I asked Christian.

"We were trying to find food, and then we spotted the horses, and figured we could hunt with those easier then on foot." he answered.

"Fine. Were you prepared to harm any of us in the process?" I asked.

"No." he lied. It was obvious.

"That's a lie. How far were you prepared to go?"

"Not killing, that's for sure." he muttered.

"But maiming was fine, right?" Tynk exclaimed indignantly.

"Well, how'd you feel if you were in our position?" Christian said venomously.

"We have _family_ to protect! I bet none of those three are related to you. See these two?" I pointed to Lu and Lyn. "My little sisters. Lu's nine. Lyn is twelve." I pointed to Tynk and then to Rhea. "Rhea is Tynk's little sister. She's Lyn's age." I pointed to Cam, then to Elli. "Cam and Elli, looking out for each other, since they're siblings. Ry and Ty, also siblings." I said pointing to Ry and Ty. "And finally Letta. She lost her mum, dad and her brother because some retards decided to play God."

The guy's faces were grave. They obviously hadn't had the same things happen, nor the same things to worry about.

"So don't you _dare_ pull the 'go in the other person's shoes' shit now." I snapped.

Most of my group's eyes were watering even then guys. Letta had her lips pressed together, and was doing a great job of looking strong. I sat down on one of the logs and one by one, everyone else sat down, except Dake, Justen, Dylan and Christian, who all looked like they'd rather be anywhere else.

"For goodness' sake, sit down." I said quietly. After all that yelling, accusing and just being bitchy, I was really tired. I heard them all sit on one log, squishing together so that they wouldn't touch any of us. I rolled my eyes. "We don't bite."

"I'd like it better if you did." Christian muttered.

"Okay, I'm going to sleep. Ty, Tynk, it's your watch now. Does one more person want to, to watch their tent?" I asked. "We'll put them in the center one, and then Letta and Elli can sleep with Tynk and Ry, in their tent. Lu, Lyn and Rhea will move to Letta and Elli's tent, and I'll sleep in there with them. Cam and Ty don't change tents.

"I'll watch them." Ry volunteered.

" 'Kay. So, Lu, Lyn and Rhea, bed. Same with everyone else. We're starting early tomorrow, and we _all_ know what happens when one person is grumpy." I dramatically turned my head to Ty and so did everyone else.

"It was one time!" he cried indignantly.

"One time that completely crushed moral for everyone." I smiled, my scar twinging again. Symba started barking again and I turned and opened the tent. Symba, Jazz, Max and Spot came running out, jumping on the guys.

"You keep _dogs?_ How do you even feed them?" Dylan exclaimed.

"The same way you feed every other animal." Ry answered sarcastically.

I smiled and turned to go. "I'll show you guys your new tent." I heard them get up and when I stopped at the middle tent and unzipped it, they shrugged. They all entered and I closed it, leaving Ry watching it.

Everyone was now in their tents, except me. I walked over to the tent I was going to share with the little kids. I opened it and got in, falling asleep almost instantly.

**Okay so, I know Ari, that I said I wouldn't until you did but you're pissing me off with not and this was already finished anyways so here. You better update now. It'll make me really upset it you didn't. But whatever. For anybody else who reads this then here's the chapter. And please review. It'd make me really happy. Like, really, really, happy.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Apparently people like this story, even though I don't get reviews -.- SO I'm going to update. I read through the last chapter and realized at one point it says 'we thought it was a girl with puberty issues' I meant 'a boy with puberty issues.' sorry. Mah Mistake =S But here's the chapter. **

I woke up the next morning, the first of everyone, as always. Or so I thought. When I walked out of my tent, to take Cam off his watch of the boys, so he could sleep for an hour. I stood outside the tent and heard whispering coming from inside.

"...escape..."

"How?"

"...got... plan..."

I went and opened the door and the tent, with my hands on my hips, and one eyebrow raised. They had all stopped and their mouths were opened, in mid sentence. Christian had an oh-shit-we're-sooooo-busted look on his face, which made me smirk.

"Do you really?" I asked with mild interest. I was smirking fully now.

"Well shit." Christian swore, all his friends looking away, not able to meet my eyes.

"You realize that this isn't one of those Pirates of the Caribbean movies where Orlando Bloom or Johnny Depp's character is captured by the newest bad guy and he has to make a super great plan to escape before they kill him. This is the real world, where the only reason you're under guard is because we don't want _you_ to kill _us_. We're not going to hurt you, if you don't hurt us." I explained, almost laughing at my reference to Pirates.

Dake, Justen and Dylan were all sniggering, obviously enjoying Christian being made fun of. I turned on them and shook my head.

"I'm talking to you guys too."

They immediately stopped laughing and Christian snorted.

"I'd honestly let you guys go free if I knew what you'd do. If I were alone, or just with my friends, like you, I'd let you guys join the camp, and go 'round free. But, I can't do that in good conscience when all of us have all of our family to protect. I need to know that I can trust you. I hope you understand." I finished, getting up and turning to go.

"Wait. Syrr, can I talk to you alone?" Christian asked.

I nodded. We stepped outside and I saw Cam sitting at the fire. I called him over to watch the guy's tent, and I started walking around the camp with Christian.

"What's up?" I asked, looking out into the forest. The trees were fully green now and the flowers were in full bloom. It was mid-may, and it was pretty depressing, how long it's been, and how nothing's gone back to normal yet.

"Well, I was thinking about what you said yesterday, about you all having family, and how we don't... and how you just said that you are protecting your family, as if all of the people in your camp are your family, not just your sisters." he paused, and looked over at me. "That's how the four of us are, we're brothers, in the closest sense other than blood. I know how you feel... I was out of line-"

"No Christian, _I_ was out of line, acting as if you guys didn't care about each other. Even if you're not family doesn't mean you're not looking out for each other. I'm sorry." I appoligized, feeling funny about it.

"I would've said the same thing if I had been in your place Syrr." he answered. We walked in silence for about ten minutes, just circling the camp, me with holding my bow, and the quiver strapped on my back. Christian was in the same thing he'd been wearing yesterday, some jeans and dark green t-shirt, that matched his eyes.

"Syrr?" he said my name, as if it was a question just on it's own.

"Mm?"

"The reason I wanted to talk to you was because... well... I was wondering if we could join your... group thing. I mean, I know what you said before, that you can't trust us, not with all of your family at stake, I'm just asking you to think about it." He asked, looking down at the ground. He turned and headed back to the boy's tent, and got back in, leaving me standing beside my tent.

I turned and entered it, and saw that the three girls weren't in the tent. Their stuff was gone too, they were packing up their things, and getting their horses ready. I rolled up my stuff and carried them over to where Harry, Stormy, Pearl and Shadow were tethered, and went back to take down the tent. Ry, Cam and Tynk came over to help me take down the tent. I told them about what Christian had asked, on behalf of Dake, Dylan and Justen and asked their opinions.

"We need to make sure that they wont hurt anybody." Cam said, his face a mask of concern.

"I think that it's a good idea, I mean, they'll add to the overall protection of everyone and they seem pretty trustworthy..." Tynk said.

"I agree, it's just, we need to find a way to make sure that we can trust them, you know? A fail safe way to get their loyalty, you know?" Ry said, thinking.

"Yeah but how..." Cam thought.

"For now we'll just have to hope that they'll be honest I guess." I said.

The others nodded, and I went and had the same conversation with Elli, Letta and Ty what they thought, and came out with the same nature of responses.

When everything was finally ready to go, I called the boys over. I took four horses, Chester for Dake, Wesley for Justen, Salut for Dylan and Kari for Christian. They all took the horses with confused looks before I shook my head at them and explained.

"These are the thing that you're going to be _riding_ called horses. You know, what people used before cars." I explained, making them sound stupid.

"Of course, you'd know all about _riding_ wouldn't you Syrr?" Christian asked, inferring something that had nothing to do with equines. He had the biggest smirk on his face, all traces of the mature person I'd seen earlier not showing through.

I rolled my eyes and mounted Pearl, Shadow coming up to nuzzle my knee. I reached down and stroked his dark nose, smiling at him. Harry and Stormy were both standing close to Pearl, and not just because their reins were attached to hers. I looked around at everyone and nodded to the others. They all boxed the boys in, leaving them no way to get out of the circle. Ty'd though of that.

I kicked Pearl to go and we started trotting through the forest, back down the path we'd come in. I led the horses out onto the road and kept heading for Richmond.

"So, where do you guys think we should go, you know, for when we need to settle in for the winter? We need to travel faster for sure, and get to someplace warmer than ottawa but where?" I asked the others.

"I was in Oregon, Portland and it was warmer in the winters there than it is here." Dake said.

"And it'll also probably take about a year to get there. We don't have the time for that. We need to get somewhere warmer within 5 or 6 months." I said, sighing. How was I actually supposed to know how long it would take us to get anywhere?

"Well what if we were to just try making our way down south?" Christian started. "If we just went from town to town, until we had to stop, then that'd be pretty good, you know? We'd get fairly far south, and then it'd warmer. If we got at least out of New York, then we'd be warmer."

I nodded. "Right. What if we were to make our way southwest, since the great lakes are sort of in our way, and then we'd end up in a city for the winter, just like Christian said." I took out a compas and slowed Pearl, getting her to stand still, so I could see which way we were going. We were going between SW and S so eventually we'd have to turn ourselves a little, so we were just going SW but for now this was good. Thankfully we hadn't been going North. That would've been super counter productive.

"Forwards we go I guess then Syrr." Tynk said, looking over my shoulder at the compass from Lance's back.

"Forwards we go." I agreed.

I was riding behind Syrr, with Ry beside me, and I was off in my own world, not really paying attention to the changing landscape, or any of the others, when I heard a rustling, that turned into a crashing, that turned into a person tripping out of the woods beside us, bloody, and limping. It was a woman, who looked like she was in her forties, and she was sobbing uncontrollably. Her arms were crossed and she looked like she was holding a pile of rags. Blood was dripping down her dirt-covered forehead, and her dark, curly hair stuck to her mocha-coloured skin.

She ran towards us and Syrr's horse reared slighty, and then she calmed her, stroking her neck. I rode up beside her.

"What're we going to do?" I whispered.

"I'll ask her about what happened." she answered quietly. Then scar on her face making her look even more grim than normal.

"What's your name?" Syrr called to the woman.

_Syrr, we don't exactly have time for pleasantries if the person who hurt this lady is nearby._

"Louisah. Louisah Elstone." she said, trying to stop her sobs. "Please you need to help us."

There was a squeal from her direction, and the bundle of rags moved. It was a baby. I couldn't see much, but it looked like the baby was unharmed. Louisah approached us cautiously, and shoved the baby into Syrr's arms.

"Please, you need to take care of my granddaughter. My daughter was killed by them! Please! Don't let her die!" Louisah turned to the place in the woods where she'd exited and I heard some crashing. Her eyes glazed over in fear and she approached the opening.

"The men of the New Age are coming. You must ride away, now, if you are to get away without any notice." Louisah urged.

"But-" Syrr started.

"_Go._"

Syrr kicked pearl to go and she started to canter, gaining speed quickly. We raced away, and I turned around, getting one last sight of Louisah, before we turned a corner. Then there was a blood curdling scream, and silence. I then knew, that Louisah Elstone, was dead.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Riding one-handed isn't as easy as it seems, especially not when you've got a baby in your arms. When we'd cantered for about twenty minutes I slowed us down to a walk and dropped my reins, relying on Pearl to listen to my leg signals. I took the rags away from the baby girl's face. She looked just like her grandmother, with brown eyes and dark skin, and frissy hair. She giggled up at me, and waved her arms around, looking as if her grandmother hadn't just been murdered.

"She never even told us your name." I whispered.

"What're you going to name her?" Ry asked, riding up beside me.

"I think I'll call her Harmony." I answered, as Harmony smiled. "Harmony Louisah Elstone."

"I like it." Tynk said, coming up beside me.

I looked down at this girl, who looked like she was around a year old. I looked around the blanket-that really looked more like a pile of rags-, looking at the tag. It said 'Baby girl, March 23rd, 2011' meaning, the march of last year. So little Harmony was about 18 months, give or take a few.

"How're we going to feed her properly?" I asked, after riding a few minutes in silence.

"Well we just cut her food really small. If the people from the Middle Ages could do it, so can we, especially with all the newer technology we have, that still works." Cam said.

I nodded, adding that to the list of mental notes that were slowly becoming too numerous to remember. I needed some paper, and a pen, just to write things down. It'd be nice to be able to remember something when it was needed, instead of just remembering them later, when it was too late anyways. I hate being the one who needs to remember everything, the one who needs to solve all the problems, the one who doesn't have anybody to lean on, because of it. The one who needs to stay strong, no matter what.

_But that's what you chose, and that's how it stays._

We ended up stopping, and cutting up some food, and putting it in little containers, to keep for later for Harmony. We set off again, in silence mostly, sometimes broken with a small joke or comment.

"Stop your horses, now! And keep your hands away from your weapons! Do it now!" A man's voice called, from the woods. I Held the baby close to my body, protecting her from harm. My bow was hopefully hidden from view, and it had one arrows strung on it.

"Even you SCarface!" the man called.

Jerk.

"Show yourself!" I called, putting my weapons out in front of me.

The man stepped out of the woods. He was barely a man, about twenty years old, maybe. He had golden brown hair and slightly tanned skin. He had a bit of stubble on his face and stood at about 6 feet. He was fairly muscular and was holding a bow that had an arrow nocked and ready. He looked like he meant buisness. Out of the woods also stepped a few others. A girl with long, wavy blond hair, about eight years old, with an attitude of completely superiority. She was holding a scary looking dagger.

There was also a boy at around twelve years old, with short black hair, and olive skin. He had a longer looking weapon, almost like a sword. He looked very grim. There were also two twins, about the same age as the leader, both holding a bow as well. They had curly blonde hair, and were both about 5'11''.

"Wow. You guys sure look threatening." I said, walking my horse slowly towards them.

"Stop where you are!" the brunet warned. I stopped Pearl and waited, making sure Harmony couldn't see them, and wouldn't notice that anything was wrong.

"What's your story this time?" I asked. I had decided to stop bothering with the name thing. I'd rather not know who killed me.

"There's been numerous times like this?" he asked, smirking. So he wasn't a complete psychopath, he had a sense of humor.

"Yupp." I popped the 'p'. "And I'd rather not recommence it. And think about it, you can only imagine what we've been through, just as we can only do the same with you. I'm sure we can work something out." I smiled prettily.

He snorted. "Not a chance beautiful, I've got something better for you guys." He grinned and motionned for his guys to come over. At that time Harmony chose to squeal, and then begin crying.

I bounced her up and down, and tried not to show my fright. "Shhh... come on Har now's not the time sweetheart. Syrr's here for you sweetie, I promise we'll be okay, we promised Louisah. Please sweetie. Shhhhhh it's okay..."

The leader cocked an eyebrow, but kept his weapon at the ready.

"Oh for goodness' sake, can I please just get her something to eat? She's only a baby." I pleaded.

"Nate, come on." the little eight year old girl said to the brunet -Nate- while pulling at his sleeve. "Nate it's a little baby. Please?"

"Fine, but go slowly." Nate said, holding his bow tightly, it's arrow trained on me.

"Shhh Har we're going to get you something to eat now sweetheart shhh..." I bounced her in my arms, while I tried to open my saddle pack with one hand. I grabbed some of the food we cut up earlier for Harmony, and grabbed a spoon. "There you go Har, mmmm you like that right?"

She munched on it quietly, and I wiped the tears off her face. She smiled a little and I heard a sigh, and looked up to see the little blonde girl making the 'awww' face. I could definitely use that to my advantage, seeing as she seemed to be related to Nate.

"You want to see her?" I asked, smiling. The little girl nodded, smiling shyly and walked over, slowly. Nate tried to stop her but she was already here, and Harmony did the best thing she could've, and cooed at her, and then giggled.

"What's her name?" she was almost glowing, at the sight of somebody younger than her.

"Harmony, and I'm Syrr, what's your name?" I asked her, holding Harmony up, so that she was the center of attention.

"My name is Serenity, and that's my brother Nate, and the twins are Mark and Jeremy. And he's Leo." She pointed each of them out. She then pursed her lips and walked back to them.

I smiled and re-mounted Pearl. "Are you sure we can't work something out?" I asked.

"I'm sure. And I've got the perfect thing for you." Nate grinned, but it didn't seem as charming as it would've, without the Bow and arrows. He walked forwards and grabbed my hand, pulling me down to his eye level. "Have you ever nannied before Syrr?" he whispered.

My eyes widened. "Are you-"

"My sister seems to have taken a liking to you, which doesn't happen often, so, if you..." he paused, coming really close, his hot breath on my ear. I shivered, wanting so badly to yank my arm away, but not daring to jar Harmony any more than I did when I was pulled down. "behave... then I'll let you and your friends live. Got it?"

_When I said I didn't like my job, I didn't mean that I wanted to lose it like this..._

"Got it." I nodded.

"Good. Ren?" he called over to her. "Come and get on this horse here." He pointed to Stormy.

"Stormy's too advanced for her." I said. "She should probably ride Pearl." I got down and mounted Stormy. That wasn't entirely true. Yes, Stormy was too advance for her, but so was Pearl. But, Stormy is faster than Pearl, and could beat her easily if it came down to that.

"You know you're not the boss of me Nate. Or should I say Nathaniel?" she put her hands on her hips in defiance, her lip curled up. She flipped her hair and stood still where she was.

I reached down quickly and grabbed her, making sure that Har wasn't harmed in the process. I grabbed an arrow and put it to Serenity's neck. "Drop your weapons, over there. Do it now or she dies!" I shouted. I really didn't want to kill Serenity. I really didn't, but bluffing always works. Most of the time.

Nate looked sourly at me, his blue eyes shooting daggers as he complied, with the rest of his crew. They all walked over to where they'd been standing, weaponless, and I nodded to Ry and Tynk, wh both ran to get the weapons without needing to be told what they needed to do.

"Oh how the tables have turned." Nate spat out.

I smiled slightly. "So, now what I need to do, is something really unpleasant." I let that hang in the air for a few seconds, and then bent down to whisper to Serenity.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"What's she saying Ry?" I bent over to whisper to Elli.

"I don't know... whisper whisper whisper..." she giggled. Her blonde curls bounced slightly.

I rolled my eyes and smiled, it was nice that she hadn't lost her sense of humor yet. Syrr definitely isn't the same. She's gotten more mature. As if she gained ten years in two weeks. It's sad really. But one person had to. And for all that I am, I pride myself in never being self-centered, but I thank God that it wasn't me who had to give up the rest of my childhood for this.

Syrr lifted her head again and spoke to Nathaniel. "I will give you one chance to surrender to us. If you refuse, then we will take Serenity and be on our way. I also would like to extend a welcome hand to any individual in your party that would like to come with us, then they may come, with or without you. Whatever you wish."

"No. I will not come." he refused. "And Ren isn't going. She's staying with her flesh and blood. This is kidnapping!"

"Sweetheart, it's time for a newsflash- noone is running by the same rules anymore." she said sweetly.

I kicked Daisy to move forwards and stopped her beside Pearl. "What are you doing? Separating families!" I whispered frantically.

"Just go with it, I know what I'm doing." she said, her eyes begging me to wait and see what happened at the end. I sighed, resigned and sat back in my saddle, nodding at her to continue, as if she needed my permission to go on.

"I'm staying with Syrr Nate. I don't want to be scared anymore, I don't want to attack people anymore. I just want to be happy, and have a family, and be safe." Serenity said, her eyes tearful.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The little black haired boy- well not that little I guess, seeing as he was about Jessalyn's age- stepped forwards, and came forward until he stopped six feet away from me. "I want to join too." he said quietly. I silently noted that this was the first time this boy has spoken.

I smiled at him. "'Course you can bud." I realized I was still holding the arrow to Serenity's neck, and took it away, but kept it in view of Nate.

"Leo!" Nate cried angrily.

Leo shrugged. "I feel same as Ren. I want to feel secure, not like a criminal for hunting down people to do what we want them to."

Mark and Jeremy both came forwards too. When Nate glared at both of them, they just shrugged as well. "Leo and Ren are right. The world don't need no more bad guys." Jeremy said.

"So, you guys are all choosing her over me?" Nate looked defeated. They all nodded at him and his shoulders sagged hugely. "Well then I guess I'm in too." I smiled and dismounted, helping Serenity down as well. I still had Harmony in my arms so I gave her to Ry, and walked over to Nate.

"I'm sorry Nate, that things didn't go the way you planned." I put a hand on his shoulder and he looked up at me. "But Jeremy is right. This world really doesn't need any more bad guys."

"Are there really bad guys though? Or are there just the people who use what they've got, and the people who abuse it?" Nate asked nobody in particular.

I smiled. "You're wise, for someone who isn't using his brain much." I joked.

He smiled a little. "You're not going to be able to trust me for awhile are you?"

"We'll see." I turned and walked back to Pearl. I mounted her and rode back to where Lucy was sitting contentedly on Abby. "Do you think Serenity could have either Strawberry or Tinkerbell?" I asked.

After a short pause she nodded and gave Serenity Tinkerbell, who smiled brightly, and took the offered horse. One thing with all this adding of people, is the fact that we're losing food, fast.

Symba barked, and then Jazz, who was standing beside Ry's horse on a leash, barked back. Then Max started barking, and then Spot started meowling, and it was really quite upsetting.

"Holy sh-" Nate started but a raised eyebrow and a glare from me shut him up. "You keep dogs?"

"That seems to surprise alot of people." Elli said to him.

"Whatever. Where are we going?" he asked.

"South." Christian answered, a little hostilely.

"I know just the place." Nate grinned.

**So it's finished! It's taken me alot longer than I planned but it's up! So, for those few who actually read this, I hope you like it! And please review, please. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But if you're going to flame, save it. Thanks! **


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay here's the next chapter. And sorry it's been so long since I last updated... mah bad... I'm busy alot.. and especially on sundays and mondays, and really, every day except fridays ****XD**

For the next couple of days, Christian, and his guys were acting really rudely, and hostilely, when any of the new guys talked to either me, Eli, Tynk, Ry, or Letta. It was wierd. It was as if they were... jealous. But that would be stupid, becuase they barely knew us. But we were the only girls in probably a _very_ long distance.

"Syrr!" Christian called from behind me. I smiled and shook my head. At least once a day he'd come over, just for the sake of flirting.

"Mhmm?" I answered.

"Miss me?" he smirked.

I sighed. "No more than I did twenty minutes ago." I answered. Nate barked out a laugh and Christian glared at him.

"You know, soon, survival of the human race is going to be a problem, and I just wanted you to know that I'm here when you decide it's time." he winked.

I rolled my eyes and looked over at Tynk, who was currently holding Harmony. "Calm your hormones Chris, there're minors here."

"They wont mind. They need to see two people loving each other, inside and out." he winked again and I raised my eyebrows. His mind was getting dirtier by day. I decided he might benefit from a loss of testosterone.

"In your dreams, and I shudder to think of what they entail." I fake shivered.

"You know it." he smirked and rode off, joining his friends.

I rolled my eyes and beckoned Tynk over, and she brought Harmony over as well, by default. "Sometimes that child annoys the hell out of me."

"Dake is really getting on my nerves as well. I think we sort of need an established place to stay soon, or else I am going to strangle him. No matter how good looking he is." she stated, getting angry, and then getting a dreamy look on her face. It was interesting to watch her emotions change so quickly.

"Maybe we need to... confront this issue." I smiled evilly at her and she got an oh-crap-what's-she-going-to-do-this-time look on her face. I guess I have done this sort of thing alot...

"Oh no."

"Oh yes." I grinned, already formulating the plan in my mind.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-..-.-.-.-...-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

I looked up and grinned when I saw that Syrr was riding towards us.

"Hey Christian." she smiled a little too sweetly. Something was up. "Wow. Now that I'm over here I'm getting a little hot..." she then looked at me, and looked like she was realizing something. "Probably because I'm next to you." she winked. Her long brown hair was tied up in a high ponytail, and her scar was pink, running up the side of her face, but not marring too much of her beauty.

"What's with your change of heart?" I smirked, thoroughly enjoying this.

"I don't know, maybe I realized just how devastatingly handsome you are." she smirked, and I swear I'd seen that very same expression on someone else, but I couldn't remember where.

"Well it's about time." I smirked, and her smile faltered a little, but it was back before I really knew it, and I thought I'd imagined it. Probably.

"Playing hard to get has gotten boring... now I feel like we can do so much more..." she was smiling and I sensed that that statement was meant to be suggestive, and it made me shiver- and sort of rethink this whole thing. Maybe I should've waited for another group... who'm I kidding? I can just avoid Syrr. We still need to eat! She put her hand on my thigh, and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. This is only okay when I do it.

"Maybe that's not a good idea..." I said, taking her hand off me.

"Aww you're no fun." she pouted. "I had such big plans..." she winked.

"Syrr I think we need to spend some time away from each other for awhile..." I suggested, trying to let her down easy.

-.-.-.-.-.

I was looking at Christian, playing my part and was trying not to laugh. Any second now...

"Syrr I think we need to spend some time away from each other for awhile..." he suggested and I almost burst.

This was the perfect opening. "And now you know how I feel!" I dropped the act right away, and his expression changed right away. "I was just being you Christian. You need to back off sometimes! Or, I don't know, grow up! We're not here to flirt, we're here to go and find a nice place to stay for the winter."

"Wait..what?" he sputtered, looking extremely lost at the moment. Nate was enjoying this moment alot. He had tears running down his face, and he was almost falling off his horse.

"I. Was. Acting. Like. You." I enunciated every word clearly, and looked straight into his eyes, just so he'd know I meant it. Somehow in the middle of all this we still managed to make good progress, towards our unknown destination.

"So... wait, this was an act. To show me how annoying me is?" he looked sort of hurt.

"No, this was an act to show you that maybe, what we all need is a friend, not a flirt." I said, putting a hand on his shoulder, and looking into those beautiful, deep green eyes that you could only get lost in, and he managed a smile.

"But we also need someone to hold..." I do believe those were the most profound words I'd ever heard him speak.

"There's this quote I read on the internet. It said 'Never argue with an idiot- people watching might not know the difference'. So, for now, I'm going to leave, and let you think whatever makes you happy." I smiled, and rode forwards, picking the pace up a little, it was getting dark and we hadn't found a place to make camp yet- and we needed to soon. It would be extremely hard to do so in the dark, especially without flashlights, which, for one reason or another, someone forgot to bring.

Nice apocalypse kit, huh?

We seemed to have been making good time, getting from town to town each day, even though we couldn't go from city to city it was pretty good, to say the least. We were able to take shelter in homes for the most part, while we'd put the horses in the backyard, and three people watching, two on the roof, and one patrolling the grounds. We were getting to be all military style now. Wierd how only a few weeks ago I'd have been in my room reading, or gossiping, and now I'm taking care of all these people.

I sometimes wish that Ty or Cam had stepped up, that they had take the role of responsability, it'd be so much easier that way. I wouldn't have to constantly worry about our food supply, or our endless travelling in a direction that doesn't seem to be really going anywhere warmer. Braving the Canadian winter was going to be hard, for all of us, especially without the heaters, and especially for the people who are guarding/ taking watch outside. They would be extremely cold. But it wouldn't be much warmer inside.

I looked up and saw the first house, indicating that we were near the next town. The house looked like that new CHEO home. CHEO homes are these huge, homes that are the prize of a lottery, that helps raise money for CHEO- Children's hospital of eastern ontario- and they have a ton of room. I grinned, and looked at the others.

"Guess where we're staying tonight?" I called.

There were some whoops and 'yes's and I felt this elation inside me. At least tonight would be a good night. I everyone except Nate, Christian, Ry, Tynk and Dake outside, to watch the horses, and the others came inside the house with me. I looked around, and motionned for everyone to search the first floor, and we found noone. We then split up, some searching the bottom floor, and some searching the top floor. I was one of the people going to the basement, with Christian and Ry, and then the other three went upstairs. Halfway through searching the basement I heard a thump, and a cry of shock and pain. I looked at the others and rushed upstairs.

I saw Dake on the ground, Tynk in the arms of a girl a year or so older than me, with long black hair, and olive skin. She was holding a kitchen knife up to Tynk's neck, and Tynk was breathing heavily. Crap. Nate was standing in a ready postition, and would've taken on this girl, if she hadn't had a knife against Tynk's neck.

"Don't move or I'll slit her throat." she warned.

Tynk swallowed and the knife cut her neck, just slightly. "Let's be reasonable, we're just passing through, we didn't mean to intrude..." I put my hands up in the universal 'i mean you no harm' gesture, and took a slow step forwards. She pressed the knife a little harder, drawing some blood, and i stopped. This girl meant business. Dake growled, when he saw the blood trickling down her throat.

"What do you want from us?" I asked.

She paused for a second, and did this weird nod-thing with her head, and I realized that there was a child behind her. Three actually. Triplets, and they looked just like her too. Two boys and one girl. "I want protection, for all of us. I want you to take us into your band of whatever you'd call this."

"Done." I answered quickly. She looked into my eyes, and I looked into her brown ones, and she released Tynk, and she ran to me, grabbing her bow and arrows as she came.

"I hope you realize that threatening wasn't necessary." I said, looking at her. She looked astonished, but I just smiled and waved at the little ones, who smiled back, shyly.

"Well, there've been some people coming around... and taking people... I just want them to be safe.." she looked at them with love in her eyes.

"What're their names?" I asked. There was one boy, who was slightly taller than the other, and that was Ren. Riku was the other boy, and the little girl, was Reika, and her hair was down to her shoulders, but it was slightly curly at the bottom, where as the girl in front of me had hair to her elbows and it was pin straight. the boy's hair were buzz cut. "What about yours?" I asked.

"Miu." she answered, smiling. "Yours?"

"Syrr. This is Tynk, Ry, Christian, Nate and Dake." I pointed each of them out as I said their names. I then took a better look at my surroundings. I was in an opening, almost like a loft area, where a Tv was, with a few couches around, and a desk, and a lovely window view. The room Miu was standing in front of was one completely themed to Harry Potter. It was small, for a CHEO home room, but it was well done, and the bed was huge, easily fitting three people. At this time, Ren Riku and Reika were getting into it, and fell asleep soon after that.

"I think you should meet everyone else." I smiled.

When that was done, we all found somewhere to sleep, and were grateful for actual beds. It'd been awhile since the last time we'd slept in a bed had been a week or so earlier. Hard to believe. I slept in a king sized bed, with Ry and Lucy, and we had plenty of space to move around. The others were all also in a bed, somewhere, and some were on couches, which were just as comfy here. Three people were out on watch, as per usual when we stayed in a house.

This was one of those rare times I didn't have a night shift, and I was going to enjoy it. I woke up that morning alone in the bed, and the sun looked fairly high in the sky. I jerked up in surprise and saw that Christian was sitting on a stool near the foot of the bed.

"What're you doing?" I asked.

"I was reading, and waiting to tell you that we need to stay the night again, because Miu needs to pack everything for the triplets, and we figured we'd let you sleep in." he smiled, his brown hair in his eyes, as always.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Around noon, I think. It's hard to tell indoors." he answered, looking outside.

I flopped back down in the bed, and looked at him, sideways. "You don't need to sit there you know. I don't bite."

"I figured that you didn't really want to wake up with me in your bed." he winked and sat down next to me. I could feel heat radiating off him. He went back to reading his book, and I fell back asleep, content that I'd feel rested for once in my life.

When I woke up again, it was getting light out, and my eyes widened. I turned to Christian, and saw that he was asleep, the book on the floor, opened at the spine, and his arm was draped over me, and I turned to get out, and it just tightened. I sighed in annoyance, and he chuckled. "You don't get to escape that easily Syrr." I could hear the smirk in his voice.

"This would be defined as rape you know." I breathed.

"It's not rape if you like it."

"Then this is _definitely_ rape."

He snorted and released me, much to his displeasure, and I walked to the bathroom, before realizing there was no more plumbing either. The stench that wafted up from the bathtub made me cover my nose and cough, running from the bathroom. i slammed the door behind me, and jumped back on the bed.

"Change of heart?" he smirked reaching out to me.

"You wish." I snorted. "The bathroom smells like- well shit, and I really don't need that right now." I shuddered just thinking about it and he nodded. My stomach grumbled, and I put a hand on it. "I'm gonna go grab some food. Coming?"

He nodded and we went down together. When we entered the room I widened my eyes and tried not to barf when I saw Mal and Justen kissing. Christian leaned close to me and whispered in my ear, "They're doing it, why can't we?"

"How long has this been going on?" I whispered back.

"They started talking alot, and they were getting really... friendly, and then now they're kissing. But back to what I just said. Why can't we?" he kissed my jaw and I elbowed him in the stomach, causing him to cry out in pain, and Ry and Justen jumping apart, Ry blushing, and Justen looking content.

I shook my head and opened the fridge, and then closed it firmly- someone had left the milk in there. I breathed deeply, and tried to get that stink out of my nose, and I opened the cupboard. I found a tin of Heinz Spagetti, and I opened it, enjoying it thoroughly- we'd run out of the good stuff ages ago, and were now stuck eating beans, and vegetables. Yummm- not. I moaned, and closed my eyes, savouring the taste. "This is fantastic."

"So are you." Christian said. I got butterflies in my stomach and pushed them away, instead studying the empty can beside him. I walked up to him and leant my head on his shoulder, the contact sending tingles through my body.

"I can't do this."

"Do what?"

"Pretend like I'm strong and powerful. Pretend like all my choices are good. Pretend like this doesn't affect me." I pointed between me and him, ending in a whisper.

He kneeled down, and grabbed my shoulders, looking me in the eyes. "Syrr, you are the strongest woman- hell _person_ I've ever met- you'll get through this. You'll find a way to make every good decision, and you're going to do it with our help. You're not alone. And Syrr, if it affects you, why do you constantly push it away?" he asked finally, and I had to look away from his green eyes.

"Because I wouldn't know what to do if it went wrong..." I mumbled.

"I wont let it go wrong. We'll make it work. All you need to do is trust me, like I will do with you." he smiled, and took my hand in his. He brought it up to his mouth, and kissed it softly, and I hugged him tightly. "Thank you."

He smiled. "Let's go and see how Harmony is doing." he pulled me after him, and I followed him to a room that looked as if it was made for little children, and right in the middle sat Harmony, with Lucy behind her, and Ren, Riku and Reika were all playing with some Lego on the opposite side of the room. Miu was watching them, and lying on a couch in the corner, flipping through a magazine, without even looking at it.

"We should probably get stuff together, and pack all this food in our things again- and get the others some makeshift saddle packs. And we can let each child take his or her favourite toy with them." I smiled. Both Jessalyn and Lucy had taken their favourite stuffed animals, and a few keepsakes. Hell, so'd I. I'd hidden them amongst my clothes, and I'd even taken some clothes out to make room. There were some things that I just couldn't live without.

When we'd gotten everything ready, it was almost dark. I looked at everyone, and smiled. "We're going to sleep here for the night, and leave early. We still have a long way to get anywhere where it'll be warmer in the winter."

It was my watch tonight, first and I climbed up onto the roof, with the others on either side on the house on the ground. I curled up in a ball, frozen, and waited, ready with my bow and quiver. When Christian came to relieve me I grinned and climbed in through the window, collapsing on the huge bed. I woke up right when it was getting light outside, and I rallied everyone together.

"I think we should find something wagon-like... it'd be way easier to carry everything we have." I said.

Miu had a light in her eyes and burst out, "I know exactly where one is!"

When we got there, my eyes widened, but I didn't question it, the twelve foot-long, six foot wide carriage was a gift from God. I hitched Mia and Delilah to the carriage, and then hitched Harry, Zeus and Pearl in front of them, making a pickaxe formation. I got the reins attached properly, and sat in the seat. I then realized that neither Mark nor Elli had a horse to ride anymore, so I motioned for them to sit in the front with me. They both climbed in, but Christian stopped them.

"Mark you ride Kari. I'll ride with Syrr." Christian said. Mark just shrugged and hopped on Kari, who, as well as all the other horses, was not carying nearly as much as she had been before. I took the little kids- Ren, Riku, Reika and Harmony- in here as well, so they wouldn't have to ride, and packed Strawberry-who was no longer being ridden by Ren and Riku- with some extra things, seeing as we'd made this pretty heavy. We needed to balance the weight along the horses.

"Okay is everyone ready?" They all made affirming noises, and so I smiled. "Let's go."

**REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! :DDDD**


	8. Chapter 8

**ALright. Here's the deal. I had over 2000 words, and when I copy pasted, I only got about 700. So, what I'm going to do is summarize what happened in those things that I'm sure as hell not re writing. Sorry. Syrr and Christian, flirting alot, and getting really romancy. They crossed the boarder- it'll probs take them about 8 weeks to get to Richmond, Virginia at the rate they're going. Hooray. Everything else was uneeded humor. I mean, I'll try my best to fill in what I'm missing but it's alot harder to redo the beginning of a chapter than the finish...**

"Home. Home on the range! Where the deer, and the antelope play! Where seldom is heard... I don't know the rest of the song- and the skies.. something something cloudy all dayyyyyy!" I sang, and everyone groaned.

"Shut up!" Letta yelled, and threw a shoe at me.

_What..?_ "Did you just... is that a _shoe_? Did you really just throw a _shoe _at me? Is that- are you being serious right now! She just threw a shoe at me." I looked at Christian. "I no longer spade you." I said to her. We giggled silently- it was a long running inside joke between us and never failed to lighten the mood.

"I think it's beautiful." Christian said, doing his best to try and keep a straight face.

"Dude you think _she's_ beautiful. She's not going to let you into her pants that way, you know." Dylan stated and I gaped.

"I'm right here."

"And don't I know it..." Christian sighed high pitched and dreamily. "It's as if all of my nerves are on high alert whenever you're near."

"Well that was a great description Lady MacBeth but it really doesn't help you win me over- I need a _friend_ remeber? Serious is what's gonna get you points- not flirting." I said. We were riding on an abandoned road, with cars on either side, abandoned, and some people didn't leave... and well, the smell was terrible.

"You're right. I was being immature. I'm sorry." he genuinely looked sorry.

"You want to show me you're truly sorry? Come hither. I'm freezing." My hands no longer had feeling on the reins, and each time the wind blew at me I was hit from both sides- the canvas of the pull-up front cover reflected most, if not all of the wind, and I severely envied Elli, Harmony, Ren, Riku and Reika.

Christian willingly wrapped his arms around me and I realized a bit late that maybe this wasn't the best idea if I wanted to be friends. "See, this isn't so bad."

"That has yet to be determined..." i muttered, and he just chuckled, and kissed me on the head. I elbowed him in the ribs.

"No. Bad Christian."

"Get a room!" Letta yelled and prepared to throw another shoe.

"No! You might hit the horses! Last time was a lucky shot!" I cried, and she scowled at me.

I shivered and buried myself deeper into Christian's chest. He may be immature, flirty, and slightly horny but he was a super great windbreaker, and it didn't hurt that he still smelled fantastic, even with the cologne gone. I tried my hardest to keep my eyes on the road, but my thoughts kept wandering and I really just couldn't make myself pay attention any longer.

"Here. Why don't you grab the reins? It's not that hard, and if you have any trouble, then you can call me. I think I'm going to curl up on your lap and take a nap." I said, and did just that.

"Ah- bu- oh alright." he acceded, and took them hesitantly. He wasn't going to wake me, unless he was really screwing things up- male pride. It was a beautiful thing when you knew how to use it to your advantage. Really, if I were a male, I'd have come up with ways to woo women years ago. I was getting to know how to get a man to do what I wanted, using my feminine wiles- if a man did it properly, he could use manly charm to make women do what he wanted- but sadly, only if he's attractive. It's a given that you need to be attractive to have wiles, or charm.

I woke up who knows how much later, with Christian poking me awake. "I have a question."

"Mmm.."

"Would you consider... well... giving me a shot?" he twisted the reins nervously.

"Why don't you let me think about it. I need to think of the whole groups feelings, not just my own." that was a lie. I knew what I wanted. I wanted this. I just didn't deserve it. And really, maybe I did need to focus more on Harmony. I was, after all, the one that her mother or grandmother or whomever had given her to int eh firstplace. Really, I was like, her godmother almost- I would not be a stepmother. That sounds bad. Stepmothers are always wicked in all the Disney movies. That and pedophiles. Disney has this fascination with super skinny girls as well, with perfect looks. What if we're not that attractive? What if we happen to have a huge scar running down half of our face? What then? Is that just our lot in life? I guess so.

"Alright. Can you give me an answer by tomorrow?" he asked, biting his lip.

I nodded, smiling slightly. "Yes. I can."

.

We'd crossed over the boarder today, and it'd felt good. We'd all decided that we were, in fact, technically American citizens.

"You know I'm not really that proud to be a Canadian. I'm being brutally honest right now. We once did a servay in Geo class, on how proud you were to be a Canadian and it was out of 45 and I got a 26. It was terrible. I did the worst in the class." I laughed.

"With that batcrap crazy teacher- Mme LaCoura! She is _insane!_ You ask her a question and she doesn't even answer the question you ask. 'where is the international date line?' 'how many degrees are in a circle? Well count that and then you have your answer!' I was sitting there- like, what? She doesn't even make sense!" Elli was giggling as she acted out just how crazy our previous teacher was. The rest of us were rolling on the ground laughing so hard.

I was gasping in short, ragged breaths and wasn't making any sound when I laughed anymore. I gasped, "My... sides... hurt... stop... making... me... laugh!" I clutched my sides, and squinted my eyes, barely seeing the flickering of the fire.

Twenty minutes later, I was lying in my tent, alone. Some of the others were going to stay up and just chill, and there were others starting on the watch. I curled up in a ball, trying to get warm. None of us wanted to sleep in the wagon- it was harder than the ground on that wood- but the kids ended up choosing to sleep in there because it is alot warmer than out here. The tent flap moved and I looked up to see Christian entering.

"Room for one more?" he whispered.

I grinned in spite of myself and moved over in my sleeping bag. "Yeah."

He took off his shoes, and came in, and it was a bit snug, but I didn't mind. I was warm and sort of enjoying this. "This is better." he whispered into my hair, and kissed it. "You know, I may seem a lot like a player, and really flirty, but it's the easiest way of showing you... well showing you how I feel. You're beautiful Syrr, and you have this way of making everything okay, just by being there. Everyone just listens to you- not even thinking about what you told them to do. You just have a way with people. And.. well... I think I love you." he finished.

I looked up at him, and bit my lip. "Really? You're not joking? This is really... this isn't a dream?"

"No." he breathed.

I kissed him hard, and it was... fantastic. Fireworks went off around us, and it was as if we were the only two people on the planet. He pulled back, and I grinned. "I love you too."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"We need to send a raiding party to the east. Towards the Virginia area." Mike said.

"Where did this come from?" I asked. Mike was a man of around thirty, give or take a couple of years, and was definitely someone you'd describe as attractive. He had a scar above his eyebrow from a bear accident right a the beginning of the Change, but it was hardly noticable, and I didn't care anyways.

"Well, when you think about it, there were so many people around the Oregon area that were in need of aid, and so many supplies here- who's to say that there's not people like that out east, and on the way there?" he asked. " One of my best friends happens to have been staying in Richmond, Virginia at the time. I'd like to ride over there, and see if we can salvage some stuff from there, and maybe even find him. It's stupid, but I want to. Maybe some others will too. And really, the A-listers will probably be itching to do something- anything."

"Alright. I'm coming with you."

"No you're not. You're staying here. We can't have you moving around like that when you're pregnant." he said. "Not with my baby."

We'd gotten together, and now, we were an item. We were planning on getting married, in a ceremony done by Juniper's group of Wiccan, and if not, just in front of at least the A-listers, to give some form of formality to it.

"Alright. Fine." I conceded.

"We'll leave in three days time." he said and left.

I'd start the preparing of the food, and supplies for him, with the rest of my associates, and get the tanner, and the blacksmith to prepare some things for the group that would be going.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

I woke up to a great feeling- being in someone's arms. Even though all we did was kiss- or technially, make out- last night, I felt good, and whole, and burning with a nice little warmth in my chest that made me want to sing cheesy love songs.

"Wake up." I kissed Christian awake.

"Wha- g'morning beautiful." he smiled and kissed me back, beginning to wrap his arms around me.

"No time for that. We need to get moving. I can ask Elli if she'll drive today, though, and we can sit inside the cart and talk- and hang out with the little ones. Elli can talk with the others, and I'm sure Dylan would like some time with her anyways." I smirked and walked out of the tent.

Twenty minutes later we had everything packed up and ready to go, and Christian and I were seated inside a warm, wagon. The supplies were piled in a large U around the wagon, so that there was a wall left at the front, where we could communicate with Elli, and get in and out through, through the opening flap. I pulled Harmony into my lap.

"How are you sweetheart? Are the others treating you well?" she looked a little smaller than she had before. She probably would've done better on baby formula, and actual baby food, but we were making do with what we had, and would start getting better food when we were somewhere warmer. She grinned a toothless grin at me, and let out a laugh. "Yes, you are adorable, yes you are, yes you are." I said in one of those baby voices that is only okay to use when talking to a child under the age of three.

Christian snorted. "I'd be making fun of you if that wasn't so adorable. Both of you."

I smiled sheepishly. "I love kids. I will adopt Harmony. I'm going to have four more kids after her as well. I'd like twins... and that takes alot of tries..." I let that statement hang sort of awkwardly. I tended to get myself into these situations, and then just keep digging myself deeper and deeper.

He smirked and his deep green eyes sparkled with mirth, and I know if I hadn't been holing Harmony I'd have been in his embrace. I almost put Harmony down to see if he still might do it. "You know, I think you're becoming more and more like me every day..."

"But then... I wouldn't be me anymore. I'd be a female you. And what fun would that be?" I giggled, and so did Harmony.

Ren Riku and Reika whispered behind there hands and giggled alot, and pointed at us, as if there was some wall blocking us from seeing them, but not vice versa. Finally, Reika came up and flopped down on Christian's lap. "Are you guys getting married?" she asked completely seriously. I snorted, a half snort a half exclamation of surprise.

"No... why?" I asked, my voice going into a voice you use to talk to little kids.

"Well you guys are holding hands," I looked down and realized she was right. I hadn't even noticed. She continued, "And you guys were kissing before. And you're cuddling a lot and mommy and daddy always cuddled. I think you should marry. You could have really pretty kids, and then we could play together, and Harmony could have brothers and sisters. Like me." she smiled hugely, bouncing in Christian's lap. He was looking uncomfortable. He obviously wasn't used to being around children.

"Erm- we- well, you see Reika..." he had no idea what to say to her.

"Reika, sweetie, we're not old enough yet. We're just becoming close now. We need to wait a few years before getting married." I smiled at her. After all, I was only fifteen.

"What she said." Christian repeated, and started tickling Reika, getting squeals.

"No! Stop it! No Chwistian!" Reika squealed, writhing on the floor, with tears streaming from her eyes. "Stop! Stop!"

I laughed, prying one of his hands off her. "Stop flirting with Reika." I winked, and he tickled me in the ribs. "Not what I meant." I laughed.

He left Reika giggling on the ground, and turned to me. "Alright. What was your favourite movie?"

"My favourite movie? Or the movie that I could watch endlessly without ever getting bored?" I asked.

"Both." he smiled.

"Well, my favourite movie has always been, and will always be the first Harry Potter movie. The movie that I could watch endlessly was White Christmas. It just makes me smile, all the songs do." I smiled, thinking of it. Speaking of a white christmas... christmas was pretty soon. I did the mental calculations... two weeks? I put that thought in the back of my mind, and asked him, "What about you?"

"I don't really have one- I tended to play video games a lot more often." he shrugged and I groaned.

"No! Not one of the COD junkies!"

He laughed. "There must have been something like that that you did."

I sighed. "Well, I was one of those girls who loved horses." I admitted, and threw Harmony up into the air, not actually letting go of her, and getting a giggle. "I was also one of the girls who had an addiction to reading."

"Ha! There!" he exclaimed, triumphant. "I think it's cute, though."

I blushed, and smiled at him. "I did play COD enough times with my friends..." I admitted.

He laughed. "See. You're perfect."

I blushed and smiled, a fluttery, giddy feeling bubbling up in my chest. "I love you..." I whispered.

"I love you too." he grinned and leaned closer to me.

"Eeew!" The kids yelled, and covered their eyes.

I pulled back and smiled sheepishly. "I guess we should wait for later..."

"I'll keep you to your promise, lovely. I hope you know." he winked.

I brought Harmony closer and kissed the top of her head. Her frizzy dark brown hair was getting longer, and less and less manageable. Her dark brown eyes were sparkling. I heard barking outside, and frowned. I pulled up the cover on the front of the wagon, to see Elli in the front of the wagon, and the others readying their bows. I grabbed mine from the side of the wagon and hopped out front. I made sure that there were people stationed behind, and on either side of the wagon, just so that we didn't get any surprise arrows through the wagon- even if the supplies were sort of protecting the children. I made Christian sit inside the wagon, and hold all the children, calming them down and making them feel safe.

"What's happening?" I asked Elli, wishing that I had a horse to ride around, and be more mobile than this- the disadvantage to a wagon; it is so very slow, when you want to make a quick getaway, and it's so very hard to watch every side of me when I can't see through the canvas.

"We heard some shouting coming from behind us. It seems to be getting closer." Dake rode up to me, and he was followed by Mark.

"Here. Get on Kari. I'll watch over the kids with Christian. We'll keep them safe." Mark promised, and I smiled greatfully at him. He hopped onto the wagon and I mounted Kari, and turned, going to the back of the wagon. Ry, Justen and Nate were at the back, riding back and forth, scanning and making sure that no one was going to randomly attack us.

"Guys. I'm going to go and scout down there." I said and started riding.

"No! Syrr, you can't go alone! Don't be stupid! They'll hear you coming and if they do have malevolent intentions, then they'll shoot you down, plain and simple. Don't abandon us- we wont survive a week without you. We'll be at each other's throats." Nate pleaded.

"I need to see who it is!" I exclaimed. Four figures on horses exited the forest. All of them were over the age of thirty. "Well that solves that problem." I muttered.

"Stop your horses! Now!" one of them shouted, riding up. He was a man of thirty, if that. He was young, and fairly attractive for a man of that age- he _was_ probably twice my age. He was holding a long sword, that looked super sharp, and very dangerous.

"Guys! Stop! Stop everything! Now!" I ordered, not stopping to think about how I was ordering my friends around. This was too important to think about that kind of thing. I turned to the man again, with my bow strung and ready, just in case. They didn't have any bows- just swords. They wont be able to get us from far away but if they manage to get close we're as good as dead. "What do you want?"

"I want you guys to tell me what you're doing here. This is very much our land." he said. He had hair that must've been cut very professionally at the beginning of the Change, but was now getting long.

"I'm sorry.. we're just passing through. I didn't mean to be threatening. We're not here to steal, or do harm. I apologize. If I'd known I'd have gone to your camp to ask if we could pass through." I was feeling truly sorry. We were the ones at fault, not them.

"Well, we obviously didn't think you were too threatening seeing as your oldest member was about twenty years old. But, we just wanted to make sure. We have children, and families." he stated.

I smiled. "So do we." Reika, Ren and Riku stuck their heads around the corner of the wagon, and Christian hopped off it, carrying Harmony in his arms. I beckoned Christian over, and picked Harmony out of his arms, giving him my bow to hold. "This is my adopted girl, Harmony. Her mother, and grandmother were killed in the first week of the Change, and entrusted me with her safekeeping." I kissed her. I pointed to my sisters, and then to Rhea, and then to Ty, and Cam. "These are our siblings." I pointed to Serenity-who had her long, curly blonde hair up in a pony tail, and was smiling slightly, with an air of superiority that didn't seem to belong to a girl of her age. Leo- whose name happened to be Napoleon, which I never would've guessed- was riding slowly next to her, with a look of adoration on his olive face. He'd made it his mission to protect her at all costs.

"I'm James, by the way. James Swanson. You guys are welcome to come and stay at my camp for the night, if you wish." he said, gesturing for us to follow.

"What do you think guys? Stay at a camp for the night?" I asked. I was a little hesitant, but they hadn't hurt or threatened us as of yet, which is more than Nate can say, and yet he's living with us. They all shouted 'yes' or made noises of affirmation, and i smiled. "Of course!"

The wagon was turned around, and we followed James and his men and women to their camp, which was quite extensive. They were actually camped out in the middle of a multi-acre field, and there were at least fifty tents set up. "Wow." Jessalyn breathed and stared in awe at the families and the kids here. There were teens, and there were infants, and there were adults, and there were even a few seniors.

"It's like... a colony..." Christian breathed from the wagon. I was riding at the front, on the side of the wagon. Everyone else was behind the wagon, because there wasn't much space to move through. "Maybe we should just stay here. Build families..." He looked at me. "We could be happy here."

I smiled slightly, but it didn't reach my eyes. "I don't think I could ever be happy just living in a tent for the rest of my life. I want a house.. and I want somewhere where I can garden. I want to have kids- lots. I want to have a community, with people, and I want to be a leader. I do. I want a lot of stuff. I feel bad. But I know that me and my friends, and my family could never be happy here."

Christian frowned slightly, but he nodded. "I could only ever be happy if you were happy."

"When we dismount and have our tents up I'm going to kiss you for a very long time..." I stated, and Christian beamed, rocking Harmony to sleep.

.

It was dark, and the firelight just barely illuminated our faces. Serenity, Ren, Reika, Riku, Leo, Harmony and Lucy were all in the wagon, and fast asleep. I turned to Christian, and tugged on his hand, drawing him away from the others. He gladly came, and pushed me up against the fence at the edge of the encampment, just close enough to the fire to see each other's faces.

He leaned down and kissed me, and my arms slid around his neck, and his were around my waist, and we were pulling each other as close as we could get. He kissed down my jaw, and down my neck, and I shivered, throwing my head back. "You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen." he whispered.

I pulled back and looked down at him. "I'm sure I'm not the prettiest. I've got a shit ass ugly scar on my face, that makes me look like I was mauled by a bear or something. I'm pretty ugly now."

"I don't think you see you the way I see you. When I look at you I see a beautiful girl with a mark that only enhances her beauty, and uniqueness. She's the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with, and I realize that we're young, and that, realistically we've got a long way to go to get married but I want to spend every moment with you. You are a goddess in my eyes." he kissed my scar, and kissed all my fingers.

"I love you, so, so much. Please don't ever leave me. I think I'd die." I whispered, with tears of elation in my eyes.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"We're only three weeks from Richmond, Virginia guys! We've come far! We'll get there very, very soon. We just need to forge through this. Let's go! We might even cut two days off our trip if we move fast enough today." I encouraged everyone. We needed to get moving. I had hope that Josh is still alive- he's smart, and is super bent on survival. If I was guessing correctly, he'd probably have a number of people with him.

"Alright. But Mike, what are we aiming to accomplish there?" asked Eliza, one of my first A-listers. My A-listers are a bunch of soldiers, or people who've trained and gone through rigorous tests, and trials and are of the best fighters in my colony. They've got a special place in it, and get benefits from it, and so do their immediate families. But, anyone can join. It's not one of those 'A-lister families only' things. It's open.

"Alright! Let's go!"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Wow. We're here." I exclaimed. We'd finally made it to Richmond, Virginia. After leaving that camp, we'd been sort of depressed, seeing as we'd been hanging out with families and people for a few days- we'd stayed longer than we'd origionally planned- but, after a few days of travelling again, we were happier than ever. Now, we were where we had planned to settle.

"We finally made it." Christian grinned. We'd switched horses with some people. I was riding Stormy, and Christian was back to riding Kari.

"Why don't we find a nice house to-" I started.

"Stay in?" finished a man who came out from a bunch of trees. He was smiling. "I'm Josh." he was about thirty, and had dark hair, and was fairly tall. He was riding a bike. "I've got some people that are all camping around here. You can stay with us for as long as you'd like. We have multiple houses for you, and we have daily rations that we'll give each of you as well."

"That's sounds... well, perfect actually. Any rules that we should know about?" I asked.

"Only two: No stealing, and no murder, or harming anyone else, or anything that belongs to someone else." he stated and I grinned. Simple and easy.

"Well I wouldn't fear any of that coming from my group. They're super protective though, so if anyone comes and threatens... well, let's just hope that doesn't happen." I smiled. "But how many houses do you have? Because I have twenty-two people to take care of, as well as myself. I honestly don't think we'll fit in one of these." I pointed at the attached homes.

"Don't worry. I have four houses for you, and each of them are six bedroom houses- we actually reside in the rich part of town now. There are thirty houses in our area, with people living in them. Your houses are close to our center. I'll show you to them." He started biking and I coaxed Stormy into a trot to follow.

It took close to twenty minutes to get to that part of the town, and by that time I was getting impatient. But, when I saw the houses we were getting, that impatience was wiped away. They were huge, victorian style homes, and they had many more than six bedroom, by the looks of it- that, or the rooms were huge. There were three houses with two levels, and lots that had at least six or seven hundred square feet- more than enough room for the horses, and wagon, and the dogs and cat to run around. The fourth house had three floors- something he'd failed to mention- and that lot was at least twice the size of the others. It had at least eight or nine rooms, and there were multiple windows. I was drawn to it.

"That large one is for your family. The other three are for the others. You can divide them however you want." James said. "Someone will come and bring the rations for the twenty-three of you."

I thought it out and decided:

Me, Harmony, Jessalyn, Lucy, Tynk, Rhea, Ry, Elli and Letta were all going to stay in my house with me. In another house Miu, Riku, Ren and Reika would be staying. Nate, Serenity, Leo, Jeremy and Mark would be staying in a third house. In the last Cam, Ty, Christian, Dake, Justen and Dylan would be staying. I told them that, and they all agreed- Christian, with some reluctance.

"Just think- it'll make it that much more exciting when you stay over night." I coaxed, to try and make him happier. He smiled at that thought, and agreed solemnly.

I entered the house- _my_ house, I reminded myself. I gaped. It had a huge entryway, with a grand staircase. The wood floors were cold on my sock feet, and the windows were letting in tons of light. The front room was gorgeous, with older furniture, and a wood burning fireplace, and an ornate coffee table. I walked into the family room, and wasn't disappointed to find that there were huge couches, and a large arm chair. There was another coffee table, and a useless flatscreen T.V. was sitting on a T.V. table. The kitchen was huge, with large counter tops, and beautiful stainless steel appliances- also, useless.

"We need to fix this stove- make it a wood burning stove." I pointed out, peeking in the pantry- nothing there.

I turned, and walked back to the front, going up the stairs. My jacket was lying on a bench and I was only in a few sweaters. I hopped up the stairs that had a little bit of red carpet running right up the middle. Upstairs there were red carpets as well, and there was a large sitting and games area, and at the back of it there were stairs going to the third floor. I walked over into it, and noticed that there was a door, on the left side, just beside the stairs. I opened the door cautiously and gaped.

The room was at least twenty feet across, and fifteen feet wide. The window was the large one I'd seen from the road, with a gorgeous seat, with crimson cushions and large, fluffy gold pillows. I tried the seat, and it lifted, showing a compartment full of notebooks and binders beneath it. I picked them out, reading through them. I knew that if the person had left them here, they didn't mean enough to them. I sat down on the now white carpet, and examined the rest of the room.

It had a huge four-poster king bed, with a dark, burgundy canopy and a thick duvet. There was a huge desk, and a dresser. The bedside table had a clock that no longer worked, and a lamp that I knew wouldn't light up again. There was a large gold couch, with some matching burgundy and red pillows. There was a soft, gold blanket and some books still strewn along the couch. Picture were on the wall, without their actual photos, and also some spots where the entire frame had been taken down. I walked to the attached bathroom, and breathed in clean air. No one had been using it yet. I was going to keep it that way. The bathtub was huge, and looked like it would've had jets, before the Change. The sink, was huge, it had a huge shelf, and there was a cabinet to the right of the sink, which was just inside the door.

"This is... amazing." The walls were red, and had designs that looked almost useless all over them, in gold, silver, bronze and a dark burgundy.

"This your room then?" Tynk teased.

"Well, I need to scout the rest, in case another is more practical..." I started. "Have you picked yours?"

"Yeah. I found one. Smaller than yours but it's blue, and perfect for me. It also has this fantastic closet, it's at least a quarter of this room. It even has a chair in there, large enough for me to sleep on. I can literally write- get my ideas in there. I can live here Syrr. Finally, I can. We can stay here. We can." she was so happy. Her hair was getting even longer, and her blue eyes were brimming with tears of joy.

"I love it here as well. How many rooms are on each floor?" I asked, getting back to business.

"There are ten rooms. Four large ones on this floor and six smaller ones upstairs. But there's something I can't figure out- there's this substantial space missing right in the middle. It's shaped squarely, but the way it fits into the floor plan is in a diamond, and the points are very much visible. I don't understand where or what it's use is. And the weirdest thing is, it's right above your bedroom." she stated.

I started looking around right away. I looked at the edges of the room, pulling at corners, and trimming, seeing if maybe there was an entryway of some kind. I looked in the bathroom, on the ceiling and found nothing. "I have no idea where it- oh my goodness." I ran outside and opened my closet door, which was right beside my bed. I rifled through the mostly bare closet, and didn't find anything. I kicked the wall, frustrated, and heard a hollow sound. I pulled at the corners- nothing. I slammed my hand against the wall, and leaned back against it, frustrated. I fell backwards, and it opened, sending a puff of dust outwards.

"Tynk! Tynk I found something! Light shone through, and I turned to see a stone staircase, and a small window, letting in enough light to see the small anteroom. There were some shelves, and enough space for me to lie down and touch my head and my feet to each wall.

It was so dusty, and very dirty but I ignored that. Tynk ran in and gaped. "Holy shit... this is like in those movies... this is so cool."

I stood up, brushing myself off and started walking up the stairs, noticing how the roof was slightly lower. There was a wooden door at the top, with a thick, metal handle. Tynk was following behind me, slowly. I looked at her, and she nodded, motioning for me to open the door. I pulled down on the handle, and opened it, the screeching was not as loud as I thought it would be, but loud enough. We walked into the room and were shocked. It was a large square room, about ten foot by ten foot, and it was full of old books, and had a nice couch, and some little tables. The window here was quite large, and was letting in enough light for me to have to shade my eyes.

"This is like... a secret library. We wont tell anyone, alright? Just in case of an emergency. We'll need a way to escape." I looked out the window and saw that if we were careful we could crawl onto the roof, and find a way down.

"Alright... I wont tell. But we need to share. And be careful. We can't both be here at the same time unless it's nighttime, or people are out. We need to be very, very careful about our hiding place." Tynk cautioned and I nodded, agreeing completely.

We both went back downstairs, and I pulled the door shut, and noticed that the wall that had opened to lead into this place had a handle on the inside, so we wouldn't get stuck in here. We could shut the door. Which was good. I pulled the door closed and Tynk and I surveyed the wall. Not a trace that it opened at all. I was impressed.

"Alright. I'm going to set up a bed for Harmony in here." I said.

"There's a crib upstairs that I can get the guys to help me bring down for you." she suggested, and left.

I smiled. Time to get my little baby.

It was dark. Harmony was asleep. I lay in the big kind bed, and I finally felt safe. For the longest time I never felt truly safe; always on the edge, jumping at noises, after the fight and the kills we made I never really slept right. I had a feeling that it would be different tonight.

**That wasn't so bad, right? Interesting discovery ;) please please please REVIEW. If the story was good enough to read until now it's the least you can do.**


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